which the brutes dodged me, made
me go right out to Spithead, and there I found myself pulling among a
whole fleet of men-of-war and Indiamen. The officers and ships'
companies crowded into the hammock nettings and rigging to see me pass,
and never have I heard such shouts of laughter as they raised as I
pulled by. Neither to the one side nor to the other could I turn; for
if I did, as surely one of the beasts would instantly swim up, with open
mouth, and make a grab at my oar to keep me going straight ahead. I
sung out to the people aboard the ships in mercy's name to take a shot
at some of the bigger brutes, for I thought that I could grapple with
the little ones; but either they didn't or wouldn't hear me; so away I
pulled right out towards the Nab. Thinks I to myself, `Perhaps the
people in the lightship will lend a helping hand to an old seaman;' but
not a bit of it. When they saw me coming with my train of forked-tailed
brutes after me, they sung out that I must sheer off, or they would let
fly at me. So there I was fairly at sea, followed by as disagreeable a
set of customers as a man ever had astern of him.

"I didn't bless Doctor Gulliman exactly, for I could not help thinking
that somehow or other he had had a hand in the mystification. I now
pulled up my larboard oar a little, and found that I was going right
round by the Culver cliffs. `Well, I'll get on shore at the back of the
Wight anyhow, and do them,' I thought to myself. But what do ye think;
the moment I tried the dodge, the cunning brutes kept edging me off the
land, till I saw that there was no hope for me but to go on. All the
time they made such a tremendous hissing and splashing and whisking,
that you'd have thought a whole ship's company was washing decks above
your head, and heaving water about in bucketsful. It was now night, but
there was light enough and to spare to enable me to see the beasts as
they kept way with me. I passed Sandown and Ventnor and Steephill, and
could see the lights in the houses all along the shore; but as to being
able to land, the wriggling brutes in my wake, as I said, took good care
that I shouldn't do that. By the time I got off Saint Catherine's my
arms began to ache a bit, and I felt as if I couldn't pull another
stroke; but when I just lay on my oars to take breath and to knock the
drops off my brow, which were falling down heavy enough to swamp the
boat, the look of their wicked eyes and big mouths