"Well," said I, after we had stood some minutes, "where did you come from, shipmate?"
He looked at me and then up at the sky, in a knowing manner.
"Come, come, that won't do; you have none of Peter Wilkins's wings, and couldn't come on the aerial dodge; it won't do; how did you get here?"
He gave me an awful wink, and made a sort of involuntary movement, which jumped him up a few inches, and he bumped down again on the water-cask.
"That's as much as to say," thought I, "that he's sat himself on it."
"I'll go and inform the captain," said I, "of this affair; he'll hardly believe me when I tell him, I am sure."
So saying, I left the deck and went to the cabin, where the captain was at breakfast, and related to him what I had seen respecting the stranger. The captain looked at me with an air of disbelief, and said,--
"What?--do you mean to say there's a man on board we haven't seen before?"
"Yes, I do, captain. I never saw him afore, and he's sitting beating his heels on the water-cask on deck."
"The devil!"
"He is, I assure you, sir; and he won't answer any questions."
"I'll see to that. I'll see if I can't make the lubber say something, providing his tongue's not cut out. But how came he on board? Confound it, he can't be the devil, and dropped from the moon."
"Don't know, captain," said I. "He is evil-looking enough, to my mind, to be the father of evil, but it's ill bespeaking attentions from that quarter at any time."
"Go on, lad; I'll come up after you."
I left the cabin, and I heard the captain coming after me. When I got on deck, I saw he had not moved from the place where I left him. There was a general commotion among the crew when they beard of the occurrence, and all crowded round him, save the man at the wheel, who had to remain at his post.
The captain now came forward, and the men fell a little back as he approached. For a moment the captain stood silent, attentively examining the stranger, who was excessively cool, and stood the scrutiny with the same unconcern that he would had the captain been looking at his watch.
"Well, my man," said the captain, "how did you come here?"
"I'm part of the cargo," he said, with an indescribable leer.
"Part of the cargo be d----d!" said the captain, in sudden rage, for he thought the stranger was coming his jokes too strong. "I know you are not in the bills of lading."
"I'm contraband," replied the stranger; "and my uncle's the great chain of Tartary."
The captain stared, as well he might, and did not speak for some minutes; all the while the stranger kept kicking his heels against the water-casks and squinting up at the skies; it made us feel very queer.
"Well, I must confess you are not in the regular way of trading."
"Oh, no," said the stranger; "I am contraband--entirely contraband."
"And how did you come on board?"
At this question the stranger again looked curiously up at the skies, and continued to do so for more than a minute; he then turned his gaze upon the captain.
"No, no," said the captain; "eloquent dumb show won't do with me; you didn't come, like Mother Shipton, upon a birch broom. How did you come on board my vessel?"
"I walked on board," said the stranger.
"You walked on board; and where did you conceal yourself?"
"Below."
"Very good; and why didn't you stay below altogether?"
"Because I wanted fresh air. I'm in a delicate state of health, you see; it doesn't do to stay in a confined place too long."
"Confound the binnacle!" said the captain; it was his usual oath when anything bothered him, and he could not make it out. "Confound the binnacle!--what a delicate-looking animal you are. I wish you had stayed where you were; your delicacy would have been all the same to me. Delicate, indeed!"
"Yes, very," said the stranger, coolly.
There was something so comic in the assertion of his delicateness of health, that we should all have laughed; but we were somewhat scared, and had not the inclination.
"How have you lived since you came on board?" inquired the captain.
"Very indifferently."
"But how? What have you eaten? and what have you drank?"
"Nothing, I assure you. All I did while was below was--"
"What?"
"Why, I sucked my thumbs like a polar bear in its winter quarters."
And as he spoke the stranger put his two thumbs into his mouth, and extraordinary thumbs they were, too, for each would have filled an ordinary man's mouth.