'
"We were about twenty-four hours from port, an' the sarpint was still
following us; and at six o'clock in the evening the officers puffected
all their arrangements for ketching the creetur at eight o'clock next
morning. To make quite sure of it an extra watch was kept on deck all
night to chuck it food every half-hour; an' when I turned in at ten
o'clock that night it was so close I could have reached it with a
clothes-prop.
"I think I'd been abed about 'arf-an-hour when I was awoke by the most
infernal row I ever heard. The foghorn was going incessantly, an' there
was a lot o' shouting and running about on deck. It struck us all as 'ow
the sarpint was gitting tired o' bread, and was misbehaving himself,
consequently we just shoved our 'eds out o' the fore-scuttle and
listened. All the hullaballoo seemed to be on the bridge, an' as we
didn't see the sarpint there we plucked up courage and went on deck.
"Then we saw what had happened. Joe had 'ad another fit while at the
wheel, and, NOT KNOWING WHAT HE WAS DOING, had clutched the line of the
foghorn, and was holding on to it like grim death, and kicking right and
left. The skipper was in his bedclothes, raving worse than Joe; and just
as we got there Joe came round a bit, and, letting go o' the line, asked
in a faint voice what the foghorn was blowing for.
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