h work to do. When fine weather returned, then came the sense of
solitude, which I could not shake off. I used my voice often, at first
giving some order about the affairs of a ship, for I had been told
that from disuse I should lose my speech. At the meridian altitude of
the sun I called aloud, "Eight bells," after the custom on a ship at
sea. Again from my cabin I cried to an imaginary man at the helm, "How
does she head, there?" and again, "Is she on her course?" But getting
no reply, I was reminded the more palpably of my condition. My voice
sounded hollow on the empty air, and I dropped the practice. However,
it was not long before the thought came to me that when I was a lad I
used to sing; why not try that now, where it would disturb no one? My
musical talent had never bred envy in others, but out on the Atlantic,
to realize what it meant, you should have heard me sing. You should
have seen the porpoises leap when I pitched my voice for the waves and
the sea and all that was in it. Old turtles, with large eyes, poked
their heads up out of the sea as I sang "Johnny Boker," and "We'll Pay
Darby Doyl for his Boots," and the like. But the porpoises were, on
the whole, vastly more appreciative than the turtles; they jumped a
deal higher. One day when I was humming a favorite chant, I think it
was "Babylon's a-Fallin'," a porpoise jumped higher than the bowsprit.
Had the _Spray_ been going a little faster she would have scooped
him in. The sea-birds sailed around rather shy.

July 10, eight days at sea, the _Spray_ was twelve hundred miles east
of Cape Sable. One hundred and fifty miles a day for so small a vessel
must be considered good sailing. It was the greatest run the _Spray_
ever made before or since in so few days. On the evening of July 14,
in better humor than ever before, all hands cried, "Sail ho!" The sail
was a barkantine, three points on the weather bow, hull down. Then
came the night. My ship was sailing along now without attention to the
helm. The wind was south; she was heading east. Her sails were trimmed
like the sails of the nautilus. They drew steadily all night. I went
frequently on deck, but found all well. A merry breeze kept on from
the south. Early in the morning of the 15th the _Spray_ was close
aboard the stranger, which proved to be _La Vaguisa_ of Vigo,
twenty-three days from Philadelphia, bound for Vigo. A lookout from
his masthead had spied the _Spray_ the evening before. The captain,
w