considerations.

Therefore I resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special
purpose paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air,
he happened to be perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on
the lookout for whales never seen.

Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a
time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the
Channel in a balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have
a fellow feeling for the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up
there, smoking our dwarfish "dudeens," any sea-gull passing by might
have taken us for Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing
their after-dinner Bagdads, bound to Calais, via Heaven, from Dover.
Honest Jarl, I acquainted with all: my conversation with the captain,
the hint implied in his last words, my firm resolve to quit the ship
in one of her boats, and the facility with which I thought the thing
could be done. Then I threw out many inducements, in the shape of
pleasant anticipations of bearing right down before the wind upon the
sunny isles under our lee.

He listened attentively; but so long remained silent that I almost
fancied there was something in Jarl which would prove too much for me
and my eloquence.

At last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he
had never known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case
the runaways had never afterwards been heard of. He entreated me to
renounce my determination, not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to
the ship, and go home in her like a man. Verily, my Viking talked to