CHAPTER 6


Night fell upon the waters, dark and drear, and thick and misty. How
unlike those brilliant hours that once summoned him to revelry and love!
Unhappy Popanilla! Thy delicious Fantaisie has vanished! Ah, pitiable
youth! What could possibly have induced you to be so very rash? And
all from that unlucky lock of hair!

After a few natural paroxysms of rage, terror, anguish, and remorse, the
Captain as naturally subsided into despair, and awaited with sullen
apathy that fate which could not be far distant. The only thing which
puzzled the philosophical navigator was his inability to detect what
useful end could be attained by his death. At length, remembering that
fish must be fed, his theory and his desperation were at the same time
confirmed.

A clear, dry morning succeeded the wet, gloomy night, and Popanilla had
not yet gone down. This extraordinary suspension of his fate roused him
from his stupor, and between the consequent excitement and the morning
air he acquired an appetite. Philosophical physicians appear to have
agreed that sorrow, to a certain extent, is not unfavourable to
digestion; and as Popanilla began to entertain some indefinite and
unreasonable hopes, the alligator-pears quickly disappeared. In the
meantime the little canoe cut her way, as if she were chasing a
smuggler; and had it not been for a shark or two who, in anticipation of
their services being required, never left her side for a second,
Popanilla really might have made some ingenious observations on the
nature of tides. He was rather surprised, certainly, as he watched his