"So I blew the can full of air and corked it, and then I tore
up some of the boards from the bottom of the boat so as to make a
hole big enough for me to get through,--and you sailormen needn't
wriggle so when I say that, for you all know a divin'-bell hasn't
any bottom at all and the water never comes in,--and so when I
got the hole big enough I took the oil-can under my arm, and
was just about to slip down through it when I saw an awful turtle
a-walkin' through the sand at the bottom. Now, I might trust
sharks and swordfishes and sea-serpents to be frightened and
forget about their nat'ral enemies, but I never could trust a
gray turtle as big as a cart, with a black neck a yard long, with
yellow bags to its jaws, to forget anything or to remember
anything. I'd as lieve get into a bath-tub with a live crab as
to go down there. It wasn't of no use even so much as thinkin'
of it, so I gave up that plan and didn't once look through that
hole again."

"And what did you do, madam?" asked Captain Bird, who was
regarding her with a face of stone.

"I used electricity," she said. "Now don't start as if you
had a shock of it. That's what I used. When I was younger than
I was then, and sometimes visited friends in the city, we often
amused ourselves by rubbing our feet on the carpet until we got
ourselves so full of electricity that we could put up our fingers
and light the gas. So I said to myself that if I could get full
of electricity for the purpose of lightin' the gas I could get
full of it for other purposes, and so, without losin' a moment, I
set to work. I stood up on one of the seats, which was dry, and