frying; while dolphin meat is served fore and aft on such occasions
as Johnson catches the blazing beauties from the bowsprit end.

Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the
crosstrees, watching the Ghost cleaving the water under press of
sail. There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about
in a sort of trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the
foaming wake, and the heave and the run of her over the liquid
mountains that are moving with us in stately procession.

The days and nights are "all a wonder and a wild delight," and
though I have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments
to gaze and gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the
world possessed. Above, the sky is stainless blue--blue as the sea
itself, which under the forefoot is of the colour and sheen of
azure satin. All around the horizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never
changing, never moving, like a silver setting for the flawless
turquoise sky.

I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying
on the forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of
foam thrust aside by the Ghost's forefoot. It sounded like the
gurgling of a brook over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the
crooning song of it lured me away and out of myself till I was no
longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed
away thirty-five years among books. But a voice behind me, the
unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with the invincible
certitude of the man and mellow with appreciation of the words he
was quoting, aroused me.