could, washing down the deck and coiling ropes, and doing a lot
of other things that didn't need to be done, for the _Industry_ had just
been fixed up and painted and made as clean as she could be made. And
that was pretty clean. So the sailors didn't care very much about doing
a lot of things that didn't need to be done, but they did them, as
slowly as they could, because, if they said that they wouldn't do things
that the mates or the captain told them to do, that would be mutiny. And
mutiny, at sea, is a very serious thing for everybody. It satisfied
Captain Solomon and the mate well enough to have the men do things
slowly, so long as they did them. For they knew that the men would do
things quickly if there was any need for quickness.

Then, one morning, just as it began to be light, the man who was the
lookout thought that he saw something in the water about the ship that
didn't look quite like waves. And it got a little lighter so that he
could make sure, and he called some others of his watch and told them to
look and see the school of porpoises. And they all looked, and those men
told others who looked over the side, too, and pretty soon all the men
of that watch were leaning on the rail and looking at the porpoises.
That made the mate who was on watch look over, too, so that every man on
deck was looking over the side into the water. Then the sun came up out
of the water.

[Illustration]

What they saw was a great many big fishes, all black and shining, and
each one had spots of white on its side and a funny-shaped head. Most of
them seemed to be about the size of a man, and they swam in a funny sort
of way, in and out of the water, so that their backs showed most of the
time, and they glistened and shone and their spots of white made them
rather a pretty sight. And now and then they spouted little jets of
water and spray out of their heads into the air, just as if they were
little whales. Porpoises are more like little whales than they are like
fishes, for they have to breathe air, just as whales do, and they spout
just as whales do, and they are like whales in other ways. They aren't
really fishes, at all.

The _Industry_ was sailing very fast, for the wind was fair and strong,
and she had all the sails set that she could set; but the porpoises
didn't seem to think she was going very fast, for they had no trouble at
all to keep up with her and they could play by the way, too. And so
they did, hundreds of