tairs for the gun-rack. Only three were
loaded. Catching up one of these, I ran up.

"Off astern there!" cried Weymouth.

We were already fifty yards away; but, getting a glimpse of it, I
fired. There was no movement.

"Missed him!" exclaimed Wade. "I'll bore him!"

He fired. Still there was no apparent motion.

"Miss number two," said I.

Kit then took a careful aim, and banged away. The creature didn't
stir.

"Number three," laughed Wade.

"That fish must either bear a charmed life, or else it's ball-proof!"
Kit exclaimed.

Meanwhile "The Curlew" was being brought round. The captain was
getting interested. Raed brought up one of our long cod-lines with the
grapnel on it,--the same contrivance with which old Trull had drawn in
the boat some days before; and, on getting back within twenty yards,
he threw it off. It struck into the water beyond, and, on being drawn
in, played over the back of the leathern object till one of the hooks
caught fast. Still there was no movement.

"There can't be any life in it," said Wade.

Raed pulled in slowly, the captain assisting him, till they had drawn
it up under the bows. It certainly looked as much like a sea-serpent
as any thing yet. A strong line, with another grapple, was then let
down, and hooked into it with a jerk. Donovan and Hobbs tugged away at
it; one foot--two feet--three feet.

"Humph!" exclaimed the captain. "One of those Husky _kayaks_!"

Four feet--five feet--six feet. Something rose with it, dripping
underneath.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Raed, turning away.

"There's an Esquimaux in it, hanging head down!" cried Kit.

The sailors crowded round. It was a ghastly sight. The legs of the
corpse were still fast inside the little hoop around the hole in the
deck in which the man had sat. His arms hung down limp and dripping.
His long black hair streamed with water. He might have been floating
there head down for a week.

"Wal, I shouldn't s'pose the darn'd fool need to have expected any
thing else!" exclaimed Corliss. "To go to sea with his feet fast in
such a little skite of a craft as that! Might ha' known the darned
thing 'ud 'a' capsized an' drownded him."

"What shall we do with _it_?" I asked. "We might sink it with three or
four of those six-pound shot, I suppose."

"No, no!" exclaimed Wade. "We can't afford six-pound shots to bury the
heathen: it's as much as we can do to get enough to kill them with."

"Oh, don't, Wade!" said Raed. "It