. We knew we had seen something unearthly; even the
captain and Lieutenant Freemantle, though they put down the damage to a
waterspout for fear of alarming the men, knew differently, as we did.
We had seen the great sea sarpint, if anybody had, every man-jack of us
aboard! It was a warning, too, as poor Gil Saul had declared; for,
strange to say, except himself and me, not a soul as was on board the
_Amphitrite_ when the reptile overhauled us, lived to see Old England
again. The bones of all the others were left to bleach on the burning
sands of the east coast of Africa, which has killed ten thousand more of
our own countrymen with its deadly climate than we have saved slaves
from slavery!"

"But, Jim," said I, as the old sailor paused at the end of his yarn.
"Do you think it was really the sea serpent? Might it not have been a
waterspout, or a bit of floating wreck, which you saw in the fog?"

Jim Newman got grumpy at once, at the bare insinuation of such a thing.

"Waterspouts and bits of wreck," said he sarcastically, "generally
travel at the rate of twenty miles an hour when there is no wind to move
them along, and a dead calm, don't they? Waterspouts and bits of wreck
smell like polecats when you're a hundred miles from land, don't they?
Waterspouts and bits of wreck roar like a million wild bulls, and snort
and swish as they go through the water like a thousand express trains
going through a tunnel, don't they?"

I was silenced by Jim's sarcasm, and humbly begged his pardon for
doubting the veracity of his eyesight.

"Besides, Master Charles," he urged, when he had once more been restored
to his usual equanimity; "besides, you must remember that nearly in the
same parts, and about the same time--in the beginning of the month of
August, 1848--the sea sarpint, as people who have never seen it are so
fond of joking of, was seen by the captain and crew of HMS _Daedalus_
and the event was put down in the ship's log, and reported officially to
the Admiralty. I suppose you won't go for to doubt the statement which
was made by a captain in the navy, a gentleman, and a man of honour, and
supported by the evidence of the lieutenant of the watch, the master, a
midshipman, the quartermaster, boatswain's mate, and the man at the
wheel--the rest of the ship's company being below at the time?"

"No, Jim," said I, "that's straight enough."

"We was in latitude 5 degrees 30 minutes north, and longitude about 3
degrees