e and be turned off a full-fledged mate, with a certificate, on his
return from this whaling voyage.

However, these facts I learned later. Just now I was only anxious to
know what was to be done with me, and if there was a likelihood of the
captain of the Scarboro touching at any port from which I might make a
quick passage home. This last was the uppermost thought in my mind when
I followed Ben Gibson below to see the captain.

Captain Rogers was a lanky man with a sandy beard and a quiet blue eye.
He did not look as though he ever had, or ever could, be hurried or
disturbed. Had I been a Triton that had just come abroad I reckon he
would have eyed me quite as calmly and listened as tranquilly to my
story. But Gibson was so impatient (as I could easily see) that I made
the story brief. He burst out with:

"Captain Rogers! aren't we going to get that whale? She's delivered into
our hand, as ye might say. The men are eager for it, sir, but you
haven't given orders to change our course."

"And I'm not likely to, Bennie," returned his uncle.

"But it's a waste of oil!" exclaimed the young fellow.

"And it would be a waste of time for us to stop for one miserable whale
when we don't expect to break out our boats until we're well below the
equator. We'd just make a mess of the old hooker and have to clean her
up again."

Gibson was disappointed, and would have urged his desire further, but
Captain Rogers turned to me:

"If we meet a homeward bound sailing vessel in good weather I'll put you
aboard. Steamships won't stop for you. If you want to join my
crew--you're a husky looking youngster--I'll fit you out and lot you a
greenhorn's share. Best I can do for you. Is your sloop any good?"

"She's not started a plank, sir," I declared.

"Pass the word for the carpenter to take his gang and get the stick out
of her, and hoist her aboard," Captain Rogers said to Gibson. "Then take
this lad to breakfast and see that he gets a good one."

He turned me off rather cavalierly I thought. Of course, my situation
appealed more strongly to me than it was likely to appeal to anybody
else. But Captain Rogers did not seem to consider my being carried away,
willy-nilly, into the Southern Seas, and on a voyage likely to last
anywhere from eighteen months to three years--for the Scarboro was just
out of New Bedford, as has been stated--the captain did not seem to
consider, I say, what my state of mind might be. Of course, I was
th