not. I was no party to the councils of my superiors, of course, but
the foreign ship was finally allowed to continue her course.

The next day I had the forenoon watch; the weather had lulled
unexpectedly nor was there much sea, and the deck was all alive, to
take advantage of the fine _blink_, when the man at the mast-head sang
out--"Breakers right ahead, sir."

"Breakers!" said Mr. Splinter, in great astonishment. "Breakers!--why,
the man must be mad! I say, Jenkins----"

"Breakers close under the bows," sang out the boatswain from forward.

"The devil!" quoth Splinter, and he ran along the gangway, and ascended
the forecastle, while I kept close to his heels. We looked out ahead,
and there we certainly did see a splashing, and boiling, and white
foaming of the ocean, that unquestionably looked very like breakers.
Gradually, this splashing and foaming appearance took a circular
whisking shape, as if the clear green sea, for a space of a hundred
yards in diameter, had been stirred about by a gigantic invisible
_spurtle_, until everything hissed again; and the curious part of it
was, that the agitation of the water seemed to keep ahead of us, as if
the breeze which impelled us had also floated it onwards. At length
the whirling circle of white foam ascended higher and higher, and then
gradually contracted itself into a spinning black tube, which wavered
about for all the world like a gigantic _loch-leech_ held by the tail
between the finger and thumb, while it was poking its vast snout about
in the clouds in search of a spot to fasten on.

"Is the boat-gun on the forecastle loaded?" said Captain Deadeye.