ing I know. But don't you go and put me into the sea,'
says I, 'becoz it's wrote that I ain't never going to git drowned,
and you'll have all your trouble for nothing,' says I. That made 'em
larf a most tremenjous larf. 'Old Bill,' says they, 'will have his
little joke.' Then they brings up some iron stowed in the hold, and
with ropes and chains they ties well-nigh half a ton of it to my
legs and arms, then lowers me over the side. Down I wrent, in course,
which made 'em larf louder than afore; and I were fathoms and
fathoms under water afore I stopped hearing them larf. At last I
comes down to the bottom of the sea, and glad I were to git there,
becoz now I couldn't go no further. There I lies doubled up like a
old sea-sarpint along of the rocks, but warm and comforble like.
Last of all, the ropes and chains they got busted off becoz of my
growing so big and strong down there, and up I comes to blow like a
grampus, for I were full of water by reason that it had soaked into
me. So that's how I got to be the Old Man of the Sea, hundreds and
hundreds of years ago."

"And do you like to be always in the sea, Old Bill?" asked Martin.

"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the monster. "That's a good un, little Martin!
Do I like it? Well, it's better than being a sailor man in a ship, I
can tell 'ee. That were a hard life, with nothing good except perhaps
the baccy. I were very fond of baccy once before the sea put out my
pipe. Likewise of rum. Many's the time I've been picked up on shore
that drunk, Martin, you wouldn't believe it, I were that fond of rum.
Sometimes, down here, when I remember how good it tasted, I open my
mouth wide and takes down a big gulp of sea water, enough to fill a
hogshead; then I comes up and blows it all out again just like a old
grampus."

And having said this, he opened his vast cavernous mouth and roared
out his hoarse ho, ho, ho! louder than before, and at the same time
he rose up higher above the water and the black rock he had been
leaning on, until he stood like a stupendous tower above Martin--a
man-shaped tower of water and spray, and white froth and brown
seaweed. Then he slowly fell backwards out upon the sea, and falling
upon the sea caused so mighty a wave that it went high over the
black rock and washed the face of the cliff, sweeping Martin back
among the rocks.

When the great wave retired, and Martin, half-choked with water and
half-dazed, struggled on to his feet, he saw that it was night,