all expected that it wouldn't take five minutes for the vessel to
fill and go to the bottom, and we made ready to take to the
boats; but it turned out we didn't need to take to no boats,
for as fast as the water rushed into the hold of the ship, that
whale drank it and squirted it up through the two blow-holes in
the top of his head, and as there was an open hatchway just over
his head, the water all went into the sea again, and that whale
kept working day and night pumping the water out until we beached
the vessel on the island of Trinidad--the whale helping us
wonderful on our way over by the powerful working of his tail,
which, being outside in the water, acted like a propeller. I
don't believe any thing stranger than that ever happened to a
whaling ship."

"No," said the widow, "I don't believe anything ever did."

Captain Bird now looked at Captain Sanderson, and the latter
took his pipe out of his mouth and said that in all his sailing
around the world he had never known anything queerer than what
happened to a big steamship he chanced to be on, which ran into
an island in a fog. Everybody on board thought the ship was
wrecked, but it had twin screws, and was going at such a
tremendous speed that it turned the island entirely upside down
and sailed over it, and he had heard tell that even now people
sailing over the spot could look down into the water and see the
roots of the trees and the cellars of the houses.

Captain Sanderson now put his pipe back into his mouth, and
Captain Burress took out his pipe.