"But then nobody could be certain that the monster  at the bottom of
the bay needed rest or sleep. He might be able to count without
stopping, and how did I know that he couldn't check off four hundred
claws a minute? If that happened to be the case, our time must be
nearly up.

"When that idea came into my head, I jumped up and began to walk about.
What could I do? I certainly  ought to be ready to do something when
the time came. I thought of getting life-preservers, and strapping one
on each of us, so that if the Water-devil turned over the vessel and
shook us out, we shouldn't sink down to him, but would float on the
surface.

"But then the thought struck me that if he should find the vessel empty
of live creatures, and should see us floating around on the top, all he
had to do was to let go of the ship and grab us, one at a time. When I
thought of a fist as big as a yawl-boat, clapping its fifty-two fingers
on me, it sent a shiver through my bones. The fact was there wasn't
anything to do, and so after a while I managed to get asleep, which was
a great comfort."

"Mr. Cardly," said Mr. Harberry to the schoolmaster,  "what reason can
you assign why a seamonster,  such as has been described to us, should
neglect to seize upon several small boats filled with men who were
escaping from a vessel which it held in custody?"

"I do not precisely see," answered Mr. Cardly, "why these men should
have been allowed this immunity,  but I--"

"Oh, that is easily explained," interrupted the marine, "for of course
the Water-devil could not know that a lot more people were not left in
the ship, and if he let go his hold on her, to try and grab a boat that
was moving as fast as men could row it, the steamer might get out of
his reach, and he mightn't have another chance for a hundred years to
make fast to a vessel. No, sir, a creature like that isn't apt to take
any wild chances, when he's got hold of a really good thing. Anyway, we
were held tight and fast, for at twelve o'clock the next day I took
another observation, and there we were, in the same latitude and
longitude that we had been in for two days. I took the captain's glass,
and I looked all over the water of that bay, which, as I think I have
said before, was all the same as the ocean, being somewhere  about a
thousand miles wide. Not a sail, not a puff of smoke could I see. It
must have been a slack season for navigation, or else we were out of
the common track of vessels; I had never known that the Bay of Bengal
was so desperately lonely.

"It seems unnatural, and I can hardly believe it, when I look back on
it, but it's a fact, that I was beginning to get used to the situation.
We had plenty to eat, the weather was fine--in fact, there was now only
breeze enough to make things cool and comfortable. I was head-man on
that vessel, and Miss Minturn might come on deck at any moment, and as
long as I could forget that there was a Water-devil fastened to the
bottom of the vessel, there was no reason why I should not be perfectly
satisfied with things as they were. And if things had stayed as they
were, for two or three months, I should have been right well pleased,
especially since Miss Minturn's  maid, by order of her mistress, had
begun to cook my meals, which she did in a manner truly first-class. I
believed then, and I stand to it now, that there is do better proof of
a woman's good feeling toward a man, than for her to show an interest
in his meals. That's the sort of sympathy that comes home to a man, and
tells on him, body and soul."

As the marine made this remark, he glanced at the blacksmith's
daughter; but that young lady had taken up her sewing and appeared to
be giving it her earnest attention. He then went on with his story.

"But things did not remain as they were. The next morning, about half
an hour after breakfast, I was walking up and down the upper deck,
smoking my pipe, and wondering when Miss Minturn would be coming up to
talk to me about the state of affairs, when suddenly I felt the deck
beneath me move with a quick, sharp jerk, something like, I imagine, a
small shock of an earthquake.

"Never, in all my life, did the blood run so cold in my veins; my legs
trembled so that I could scarcely stand. I knew what had happened,--the
Water-devil had begun to haul upon the ship!

"I was in such a state of collapse that I did not seem to have any
power over my muscles; but for all that, I heard Miss Minturn's voice
at the foot of the companion-way, and knew that she was coming on deck.
In spite of the dreadful awfulness of that moment, I felt it would
never do for her to see me in the condition I was in, and so, shuffling
and half-tumbling, I got forward, went below, and made my way to the
steward's room, where I had already discovered some spirits, and I took
a good dram; for although I am not by any means an habitual drinker,
being principled  against that sort of thing, there are times when a
man needs the support of some good brandy or whiskey.

"In a few minutes I felt more like myself, and went on deck, and there
was Miss Minturn, half-scared  to death. 'What is the meaning of that
shock?' she said; 'have we struck anything?' 'My dear lady,' said I,
with as cheerful a front as I could put on, 'I do not think we have
struck anything. There is nothing to strike.' She looked at me for a
moment like an angel ready to cry, and clasping her hands, she said,
'Oh, tell me, sir, I pray you, sir, tell me what has happened. My
father felt that shock. He sent me to inquire about it. His mind is
disturbed.'  At that moment, before I could make an answer, there was
another jerk of the ship, and we both went down on our knees, and I
felt as if I had been tripped. I was up in a moment, however, but she
continued on her knees. I am sure she was praying,  but very soon up
she sprang. 'Oh, what is it, what is it?' she cried; 'I must go to my
father.'

"'I cannot tell you,' said I; 'I do not know, but don't be frightened;
how can such a little shock hurt so big a ship?'

"It was all very well to tell her not to be frightened, but when she
ran below she left on deck about as frightened a man as ever stood in
shoes. There could be no doubt about it; that horrible beast was
beginning to pull upon the ship. Whether or not it would be able to
draw us down below, was a question which must soon be solved.

"I had had a small opinion of the maid, who, when I told her the crew
had deserted the ship, had sat down and covered her head; but now I did
pretty much the same thing; I crouched on the deck and pulled my cap
over my eyes. I felt that I did not wish to see, hear, or feel
anything.

"I had sat in this way for about half an hour, and had felt no more
shocks, when a slight gurgling sound came to my ears. I listened for a
moment, then sprang to my feet. Could we be moving? I ran to the side
of the ship. The gurgle seemed to be coming  from the stern. I hurried
there and looked over. The wheel had been lashed fast, and the rudder
stood straight out behind us. On each side of it there was a ripple in
the quiet water. We were moving, and we were moving backward!

"Overpowered by horrible fascination, I stood grasping the rail, and
looking over at the water beneath  me, as the vessel moved slowly and
steadily onward, stern foremost. In spite of the upset condition  of my
mind, I could not help wondering why the Vessel should move in this
way.

"There was only one explanation possible: The Water-devil was walking
along the bottom, and towing  us after him! Why he should pull us along
in this way I could not imagine, unless he was making for his home in
some dreadful cave at the bottom, into which he would sink, dragging us
down after him.

"While my mind was occupied with these horrible subjects, some one
touched me on the arm, and turning,  I saw Miss Minturn. 'Are we not
moving?' she said. 'Yes,' I answered, 'we certainly are.' 'Do you not
think,' she then asked, 'that we may have been struck by a powerful
current, which is now carrying  us onward?' I did not believe this, for
there was no reason to suppose that there were currents which wandered
about, starting off vessels with a jerk, but I was glad to think that
this idea had come into her head, and said that it was possible that
this might be the case. 'And now we are going somewhere' she said,
speaking almost cheerfully. 'Yes, we are,' I answered, and I had to try
hard not to groan as I said the words. 'And where do you think we are
going?' she asked. It was altogether out of my power to tell that sweet
creature that in my private opinion she, at least, was going to heaven,
and so I answered that I really did not know. 'Well,' she said, 'if we
keep moving, we're bound at last to get near land, or to some place
where ships would pass near us.'

"There is nothing in this world," said the marine, "which does a man so
much good in time of danger as to see a hopeful spirit in a woman--that
is, a woman that he cares about. Some of her courage comes to him, and
he is better and stronger for having her alongside of him."

Having made this remark, the speaker again glanced at the blacksmith's
daughter. She had put down her work and was looking at him with an
earnest brightness  in her eyes.

"Yes," he continued, "it is astonishing what a change came over me, as
I stood by the side of that noble girl. She was a born lady, I was a
marine, just the same as we had been before, but there didn't seem to
be the difference between us that there had been. Her words, her
spirits, everything about her, in fact, seemed to act on me, to elevate
me, to fill my soul with noble sentiments, to make another man of me.
Standing there beside her, I felt myself her equal. In life or death I
would not be ashamed to say, 'Here I am, ready to stand by you,
whatever happens.'"

Having concluded this sentiment, the marine again glanced toward the
blacksmith's daughter. Her eyes were slightly moist, and her face was
glowing with a certain enthusiasm.

"Look here," said the blacksmith, "I suppose that woman goes along with
you into the very maw of the sunken Devil, but I do wish you could take
her more for granted, and get on faster with the real part of the
story."

"One part is as real as another," said the marine; "but on we go, and
on we did go for the whole of the rest of that day, at the rate of
about half a knot an hour, as near as I could guess at it. The weather
changed, and a dirty sort of fog came down on us, so that we couldn't
see far in any direction.

"Why that Water-devil should keep on towing us, and where he was going
to take us, were things I didn't dare to think about. The fog did not
prevent me from seeing the water about our stern, and I leaned over the
rail, watching the ripples that flowed on each side of the rudder,
which showed that we were still going at about the same uniform rate.

"But toward evening the gurgling beneath me ceased, and I could see
that the rudder no longer parted the quiet water, and that we had
ceased to move. A flash of hope blazed up within me. Had the
Water-devil found the ship too heavy a load, and had he given up the
attempt to drag it to its under-ocean  cave? I went below and had my
supper; I was almost a happy man. When Miss Minturn came to ask me how
we were getting along, I told her that I thought we were doing very
well indeed. I did not mention that we had ceased to move, for she
thought that a favorable symptom. She went back to her quarters greatly
cheered up. Not so much, I think, from my words, as from my joyful
aspect; for I did feel jolly, there was no doubt about it. If that
Water-devil  had let go of us, I was willing to take all the other
chances that might befall a ship floating about loose on the Bay of
Bengal.

"The fog was so thick that night that it was damp and unpleasant on
deck, and so, having hung out and lighted a couple of lanterns, I went
below for a comfortable  smoke in the captain's room. I was puffing
away here at my ease, with my mind filled with happy thoughts of two or
three weeks with Miss Minturn on this floating paradise, where she was
bound to see a good deal of me, and couldn't help liking me better, and
depending on me more and more every day, when I felt a little jerking
shock. It was the same thing that we had felt before. The Water-devil
still had hold of us!

"I dropped my pipe, my chin fell upon my breast, I shivered all over.
In a few moments I heard the maid calling to me, and then she ran into
the room. 'Miss Minturn wants to know, sir,' she said, 'if you think
that shock is a sudden twist in the current which is carrying us on?' I
straightened myself up as well as I could, and in the dim light I do
not think she noticed my condition. I answered that I thought it was
something of that sort, and she went away.

"More likely, a twist of the Devil's arm, I thought, as I sat there
alone in my misery.

"In ten or fifteen minutes there came two shocks, not very far apart.
This showed that the creature beneath us was at work in some way or
another. Perhaps  he had reached the opening of his den, and was
shortening up his arm before he plunged down into it with us after him.
I couldn't stay any longer in that room alone. I looked for the maid,
but she had put out the galley light, and had probably turned in for
the night.

"I went up, and looked out on deck, but everything was horribly dark
and sticky and miserable there. I noticed that my lanterns were not
burning, and then I remembered that I had not filled them. But this did
not trouble me. If a vessel came along and saw our lights she would
probably keep away from us, and I would have been glad to have a vessel
come to us, even if she ran into us. Our steamer would probably float
long enough for us to get on board the other one, and almost anything
would be better than being left alone in this dreadful place, at the
mercy of the Water-devil.

"Before I left the deck I felt another shock. This took out of me
whatever starch was left, and I shuffled below and got to my bunk,
where I tumbled in and covered myself up, head and all. If there had
been any man to talk to, it would have been different, but I don't know
when I ever felt more deserted than I did at that time.

"I tried to forget the awful situation in which I was; I tried to think
of other things; to imagine that I was drilling with the rest of my
company, with Tom Rogers on one side of me, and old Humphrey Peters on
the other. You may say, perhaps, that this wasn't exactly the way of
carrying out my promise of taking care of Miss Minturn and the others.
But what was there to do? When the time came to do anything, and I
could see what to do, I was ready to do it; but there was no use of
waking them up now and setting their minds on edge, when they were all
comfortable in their beds, thinking that every jerk of the Devil's arm
was a little twist in the current that was carrying them to Calcutta or
some other desirable port.

"I felt some shocks after I got into bed, but whether or not there were
many in the night, I don't know, for I went to sleep. It was daylight
when I awoke, and jumping out of my bunk I dashed on deck. Everything
seemed pretty much as it had been, and the fog was as thick as ever. I
ran to the stern and looked over, and I could scarcely believe my eyes
when I saw that we were moving again, still stern foremost, but a
little faster than before. That beastly Water-devil had taken a rest
for the night, and had probably given us the shocks by turning over in
his sleep, and now he was off again, making up for lost time.

"Pretty soon Miss Minturn came on deck, and bade me good morning, and
then she went and looked over the stern. 'We are still moving on,' she
said, with a smile, 'and the fog doesn't seem to make any difference.
It surely cannot be long before we get somewhere.'  'No, miss,' said I,
'it cannot be very long.' 'You look tired,' she said, 'and I don't
wonder, for you must feel the heavy responsibility on you. I have told
my maid to prepare breakfast for you in our cabin. I want my father to
know you, and I think it is a shame that you, the only protector that
we have, should be shut off so much by yourself; so after this we shall
eat together.' 'After this,' I groaned to myself,  'we shall be eaten
together.' At that moment I did not feel that I wanted to breakfast
with Miss Minturn."

"Mr. Cardly," said Mr. Harberry to the school-master,  "have you ever
read, in any of your scientific books, that the Bay of Bengal is
subject to heavy fogs that last day after day?"

"I cannot say," answered the school-master, "that my researches into
the geographical distribution of fogs have resulted--"

"As to fogs," interrupted the marine, "you can't get rid of them, you
know. If you had been in the habit of going to sea, you would know that
you are likely to run into a fog at any time, and in any weather; and
as to lasting, they are just as likely to last for days as for hours.
It wasn't the fog that surprised me. I did not consider that of any
account at all. I had enough other things to occupy my mind." And
having settled this little matter, he went on with his story.

"Well, my friends, I did not breakfast with Miss Minturn and her
father. Before that meal was ready, and while I was standing alone at
the stern, I saw coming out of the water, a long way off in the fog,
which must have been growing thinner about this time, a dark and
mysterious object, apparently without  any shape or form. This sight
made the teeth chatter in my head. I had expected to be pulled down to
the Water-devil, but I had never imagined that he would come up to us!

"While my eyes were glued upon this apparition, I could see that we
were approaching it. When I perceived this, I shut my eyes and turned
my back--I  could look upon it no longer. My mind seemed to forsake me;
I did not even try to call out and give the alarm to the others. Why
should I? What could they do?"

"If it had been me," said Mrs. Fryker, in a sort of gasping whisper, "I
should have died right there." The marine turned his eyes in the
direction of the blacksmith's daughter. She was engaged with her work,
and was not looking at him.

"I cannot say," he continued, "that, had Miss Minturn been there at
that moment, that I would not have declared that I was ready to die for
her or with her; but there was no need of trying to keep up her
courage, that was all right. She knew nothing of our danger. That
terrible knowledge pressed on me alone. Is it wonderful that a human
soul should sink a little under such an awful load?" Without turning to
observe the effect of these last words, the marine went on. "Suddenly I
heard behind me a most dreadful sound. 'Good Heavens,' I exclaimed,
'can a Water-devil bray?'

"The sound was repeated. Without knowing what I did, I turned. I heard
what sounded like words; I saw in the fog the stern of a vessel, with a
man above it, shouting to me through a speaking-trumpet.

"I do not know what happened next; my mind must have become confused.
When I regained my senses, Miss Minturn, old Mr. Minturn, and the maid
were standing by me. The man had stopped shouting from his trumpet, and
a boat was being lowered from the other ship. In about ten minutes
there were half-a-dozen  men on board of us, all in the uniform of the
British navy. I was stiff enough now, and felt myself  from top to toe
a regular marine in the service of my country. I stepped up to the
officer in command and touched my cap.

"He looked at me and my companions in surprise, and then glancing along
the deck, said, 'What has happened to this vessel? Who is in command?'
I informed him, that, strictly speaking, no one was in command, but
that I represented the captain, officers, and crew of this steamer, the
_General Brooks_, from San Francisco to Calcutta, and I then proceeded
to tell him the whole story of our misfortunes; and concluded  by
telling the officer, that if we had not moved since his vessel had come
in sight, it was probably because the Water-devil had let go of us, and
was preparing  to make fast to the other ship; and therefore it would
be advisable for us all to get on board his vessel, and steam away as
quickly as possible.

"The Englishmen looked at me in amazement. 'Drunk!' ejaculated the
officer I had addressed. 'Cracked, I should say,' suggested another.
'Now,' spoke up Mr. Minturn, 'I do not understand what I have just
heard,' he said. 'What is a Water-devil? I am astounded.' 'You never
said a word of this to me!' exclaimed Miss Minturn. 'You never told me
that we were in the grasp of a Water-devil, and that that was the
reason the captain and the crew ran away.' 'No,' said I, 'I never
divulged the dreadful danger we were in. I allowed you to believe that
we were in the influence of a current, and that the shocks we felt were
the sudden twists of that current. The terrible truth I kept to myself.
Not for worlds would I have made known to a tenderly nurtured lady, to
her invalid father, and devoted servant, what might have crushed their
souls, driven them to the borders of frenzy; in which case the relief
which now has come to us would have been of no avail.'

"The officer stood and steadily stared at me. 'I declare,' he said,
'you do not look like a crazy man. At what time did this Water-devil
begin to take you in tow?'

"'Yesterday morning,' I answered. 'And he stopped during last night?'
he asked. I replied that that was the case. Then he took off his cap,
rubbed his head, and stood silent for a minute. 'We'll look into this
matter!' he suddenly exclaimed, and turning, he and his party left us
to ourselves. The boat was now sent back with a message to the English
vessel, and the officers and men who remained scattered themselves over
our steamer, examining the engine-room, hold, and every part of her.

"I was very much opposed to all this delay; for although the Englishmen
might doubt the existence of the Water-devil, I saw no reason to do so,
and in any case I was very anxious to be on the safe side by getting
away as soon as possible; but, of course, British officers would not be
advised by me, and as I was getting very hungry I went down to
breakfast. I ate this meal alone, for my fellow-passengers seemed to
have no desire for food.

"I cannot tell all that happened during the next hour, for, to tell the
truth, I did not understand everything  that was done. The boat passed
several times between the two vessels, bringing over a number of
men--two of them scientific fellows, I think. Another was a diver,
whose submarine suit and air-pumping machines came over with him. He
was lowered over the side, and after he had been down about fifteen
minutes he was hauled up again, and down below was the greatest
hammering and hauling that ever you heard. The _General Brooks_ was put
in charge of an officer and some men; a sail was hoisted to keep her in
hand, so that she wouldn't drift into the other ship; and in the midst
of all the rowdy-dow we were told that if we liked we might go on board
the English vessel immediately.

"Miss Minturn and her party instantly accepted this invitation, and
although under ordinary circumstances  I would have remained to see for
myself what these people found out, I felt a relief in the thought of
leaving that vessel which is impossible for me to express, and I got
into the boat with the others.

"We were treated very handsomely on board the English vessel, which was
a mail steamship, at that time in the employment of the English
Government. I told my story at least half-a-dozen times, sometimes to
the officers and sometimes to the men, and whether they believed me or
not, I don't think any one ever created a greater sensation with a
story of the sea.

"In an hour or so the officer in charge of the operations on the
_General Brooks_ came aboard. As he passed me on his way to the
captain, he said, 'We found your Water-devil, my man.' 'And he truly
had us in tow?' I cried. 'Yes, you are perfectly correct,' he said, and
went on to make his report to the captain."

"Now, then," said the blacksmith, "I suppose we are going to get to the
pint. What did he report?"

"I didn't hear his report," said the marine, "but everybody soon knew
what had happened to our unlucky vessel, and I can give you the whole
story of it. The _General Brooks_ sailed from San Francisco to Calcutta,
with a cargo of stored electricity, contained in large, strongly made
boxes. This I knew nothing about, not being in the habit of inquiring
into cargoes. Well, in some way or other, which I don't understand,
not being a scientific man myself, a magnetic  connection was formed
between these boxes, and also, if I got the story straight, between
them and the iron hull of our vessel, so that it became, in fact, an
enormous floating magnet, one of the biggest things of the kind on
record. I have an idea that this magnetic condition was the cause of
the trouble to our machinery;  every separate part of it was probably
turned to a magnet, and they all stuck together."

"Mr. Cardly," said Mr. Harberry to the school-master,  "I do not
suppose you have given much attention  to the study of commerce, and
therefore are not prepared to give us any information in regard to
stored electricity as an article of export from this country; but
perhaps you can tell us what stored electricity  is, and how it is put
into boxes."

"In regard to the transportation," answered the school-master, speaking
a little slowly, "of encased electric potency, I cannot--"

"Oh, bless me!" interrupted the marine; "that is all simple enough; you
can store electricity and send it all over the world, if you like; in
places like Calcutta, I think it must be cheaper to buy it than to make
it. They use it as a motive power for sewing-machines, apple-parers,
and it can be used in a lot of ways, such as digging post-holes and
churning butter. When the stored electricity in a box is all used up,
all you have to do is to connect a fresh box with your machinery, and
there you are, ready to start again. There was nothing strange about
our cargo. It was the electricity  leaking out and uniting itself and
the iron ship into a sort of conglomerate magnet that was out of the
way."

"Mr. Cardly," said Mr. Harberry, "if an iron ship were magnetized in
that manner, wouldn't it have a deranging effect upon the needle of the
compass?"

The marine did not give the school-master time to make answer.
"Generally speaking," said he, "that sort of thing would interfere with
keeping the vessel on its proper course, but with us it didn't make any
difference at all. The greater part of the ship was in front of the
binnacle where they keep the compass, and so the needle naturally
pointed that way, and as we were going north before a south wind, it
was all right.

"Being a floating magnet, of course, did not prevent  our sailing, so
we went along well enough until we came to longitude 90В°, latitude 15В°
north. Now it so happened that a telegraphic cable which had been laid
down by the British Government to establish  communication between
Madras and Rangoon, had broken some time before, and not very far from
this point.

"Now you can see for yourselves that when an enormous mass of magnetic
iron, in the shape of the _General Brooks_, came sailing along there,
the part of that cable which lay under us was so attracted by such a
powerful and irresistible force that its broken end raised itself from
the bottom of the bay and reached upward until it touched our ship,
when it laid itself along our keel, to which it instantly became
fastened as firmly as if it had been bolted and riveted there. Then, as
the rest of this part of the cable was on the bottom of the bay all the
way to Madras, of course we had to stop; that's simple enough. That's
the way the Water-devil held us fast in one spot for two days.

"The British Government determined not to repair this broken cable, but
to take it up and lay down a better one; so they chartered a large
steamer, and fitted her up with engines, and a big drum that they use
for that sort of thing, and set her to work to wind up the Madras end
of the broken cable. She had been at this business a good while before
we were caught by the other end, and when they got near enough to us
for their engines to be able to take up the slack from the bottom
between us and them, then of course they pulled upon us, and we began
to move. And when they lay to for the night, and stopped the winding
business, of course we stopped, and the stretch of cable between the
two ships had no effect upon us, except when the big mail steamer
happened to move this way or that, as they kept her head to the wind;
and that's the way we lay quiet all night except when we got our
shocks.

"When they set the drum going again in the morning, it wasn't long
before they wound us near enough for them to see us, which they would
have done sooner if my lights hadn't gone out so early in the evening."

"And that," said the blacksmith, with a somewhat severe expression on
his face, "is all that you have to tell about your wonderful
Water-devil!"

"All!" said the marine; "I should say it was quite enough, and nothing
could be more wonderful than what really happened. A Water-devil is one
of two things: he is real, or he's not real. If he's not real, he's no
more than an ordinary spook or ghost, and is not to be practically
considered. If he's real, then he's an alive animal, and can be put in
a class with other animals, and described in books, because even if
nobody sees him, the scientific men know how he must be constructed,
and then he's no more than a great many other wonderful things, which
we can see alive, stuffed, or in plaster casts.

"But if you want to put your mind upon something really wonderful, just
think of a snake-like rope of wire, five or six hundred miles long,
lying down at the very bottom of the great Bay of Bengal, with no more
life in it than there is in a ten-penny nail.

"Then imagine that long, dead wire snake to be suddenly filled with
life, and to know that there was something far up above it, on the
surface of the water, that it wants to reach up to and touch. Think of
it lifting and flapping its broken end, and then imagine  it raising
yard after yard of itself up and up, through the solemn water, more and
more of it lifting  itself from the bottom, curling itself backward and
forward as it rises higher and higher, until at last, with a sudden
jump that must have ripped a mile or more of it from the bottom, it
claps its end against the thing it wants to touch, and which it can
neither see, nor hear, nor smell, but which it knows is there. Could
there be anything in this world more wonderful than that?

"And then, if that isn't enough of a wonder, think of the Rangoon end
of that cable squirming and wriggling  and stretching itself out toward
our ship, but not being able to reach us on account of a want of slack;
just as alive as the Madras part of the cable, and just as savage and
frantic to get up to us and lay hold of us; and then, after our vessel
had been gradually  pulled away from it, think of this other part
getting  weaker and weaker, minute by minute, until it falls flat on
the bay, as dead as any other iron thing!"

The marine ceased to speak, and Mrs. Fryker heaved a sigh.

"It makes me shiver to think of all that down so deep," she said; "but
I must say I am disappointed."

"In what way?" asked the marine.

"A Water-devil," said she, "as big as six whales, and with a funnelly
mouth to suck in people, is different;  but, of course, after all, it
was better as it was."

"Look here," said the blacksmith, "what became of the girl? I wanted
her finished up long ago, and you haven't done it yet."

"Miss Minturn, you mean," said the marine. "Well, there is not much to
say about her. Things happened in the usual way. When the danger was
all over, when she had other people to depend upon besides me, and we
were on board a fine steamer, with a lot of handsomely dressed naval
officers, and going comfortably to Madras, of course she thought no
more of the humble sea-soldier who once stood between her and--nobody
knew what. In fact, the only time she spoke to me after we got on board
the English steamer, she made me feel, although she didn't say it in
words, that she was not at all obliged to me for supposing that she
would have been scared to death if I had told her about the
Water-devil."

"I suppose," said the blacksmith, "by the time you got back to your
ship you had overstayed your leave of absence a good while. Did your
captain let you off when you told him this story of the new-fashioned
Water-devil?"

The marine smiled. "I never went back to the _Apache_," he said. "When
I arrived at Madras I found that she had sailed from Calcutta. It was,
of course, useless for me to endeavor to follow her, and I therefore
concluded to give up the marine service for a time and go into another
line of business, about which it is too late to tell you now."

"Mr. Cardly," said Mr. Harberry to the school-master,  "have you ever
read that the British Government  has a submarine cable from Madras to
Rangoon?"

The marine took it upon himself to answer this question. "The cable of
which I spoke to you," he said, "was taken up, as I told you, and I
never heard that another one was laid. But it is getting late, and I
think I will go to bed; I have a long walk before me to-morrow." So
saying he rose, put his pipe upon the mantel-piece, and bade the
company good night. As he did so, he fixed his eyes on the blacksmith's
daughter, but that young lady did not look at him; she was busily
reading the weekly newspaper, which her father had left upon the table.

Mr. Harberry now rose, preparatory to going home; and as he buttoned up
his coat, he looked from one to another of the little group, and
remarked, "I have often heard that marines are a class of men who are
considered as fit subjects to tell tough stories to, but it strikes me
that the time has come when the tables are beginning to be turned."