om; only they aren't all yaller like people keeps in their cages.
Most I seed there was green, and put me in mind of them little chaps as
we have at home with the yaller heads--you know, sir; them as cries, `A
little bit of bread and no cheese.' And you see them up country,
a-twittering among the hedges."

"Yes, I know," said Rodd sharply; "but what about the Sargassey Sea?"

"Ah! I'm thinking it was after that we come to that sea, only I aren't
quite sure, sir. But if I recollect right, they say it shifts about
according to what sort of weather we have."

"Well, so does every sea," cried Rodd, "when the waves are running
high."

"Ah, but they don't run high here, sir. You see, the Sargassey Sea
aren't like other seas, and I suppose it's only part of the Atlantic
after all. It's all smooth like because as far as you can see it's all
like one great bed of floating seaweed, so thick that you can hardly
sail through it at times, and if you go out into it in a boat it's as
much as you can do to dip your oars."

"Have you been out amongst it then?" asked Rodd.

"Yes, sir, more'n once. It was when I was in the _Prince George_ off
the West Coast of Africa, and we had got a surgeon on board there, and
him and our second lieutenant had both got it badly."

"What, West African fever?" cried Rodd.

"No, no, sir; same as your uncle's got--looking after strange things as
lives in the sea. I was one of the crew of the second cutter then, and
in the beautiful calm weather we used to take the doctor and the second
luff out in this Sargassey Sea, which used to look sometimes as if we
were floating about in green fields."

"Oh, you mean the Sargasso Sea!" cried Rodd. "Nay, I don't, sir; I
means the Sargassey Sea."

"Well, that's the same thing, only you spell it differently," cried
Rodd.

"Oh no, sir; that I don't. That's a thing as I never pretended to do.
I can take my spell at the pump or at any other job; but what you call
spelling was never in my way."

"But you mean the same thing," cried Rodd. "It isn't Sar-gass-ey; it's
Sar-gass-o."

"Ho! Sar-gass-ho, is it, sir?"

"Yes, of course."

"All right, sir; I'm willing. But my one was all alive with little
things, little fish and slugs and snails of all kinds of rum sorts; and
our second luff used to make us haul in great lengths of the seaweed as
was floating about, and then help him to pick 'em out into bottles till
they were quite full, and looking jus