had told him more than he desired to know. "Why, an that be the case,"
said the seaman, "I have no occasion to go aloft this trip, brother."

This evasion would not serve his turn. Old Tisiphone was at hand, and
led him up growling into the hall of audience, which he did not examine
without trepidation. Having been directed to the coffin, where he
presented half a crown, in hope of rendering the fates more propitious,
the usual ceremony was performed, and the doctor addressed him in these
words: "Approach, Raven." The captain advancing, "You an't much
mistaken, brother," said he, "heave your eye into the binnacle, and box
your compass, you'll find I'm a Crowe, not a Raven, thof indeed they be
both fowls of a feather, as the saying is."--"I know it," cried the
conjurer, "thou art a northern crow,--a sea-crow; not a crow of prey, but
a crow to be preyed upon;--a crow to be plucked,--to be flayed,--to be
basted,--to be broiled by Margery upon the gridiron of matrimony." The
novice changing colour at this denunciation, "I do understand your
signals, brother," said he, "and if it be set down in the log-book of
fate that we must grapple, why then 'ware timbers. But as I know how the
land lies, d'ye see, and the current of my inclination sets me off, I
shall haul up close to the wind, and mayhap we shall clear Cape Margery.
But howsomever, we shall leave that reef in the fore top-sail.--I was
bound upon another voyage, d'ye see--to look and to see, and to know if
so be as how I could pick up any intelligence along shore concerning my
friend Sir Launcelot, who slipped his cable last night, and has lost
company, d'ye see."

"What!" exclaimed the cunning man; "art thou a crow, and canst not smell
carrion? If thou wouldst grieve for Greaves, behold his naked carcase
lies unburied, to feed the kites, the crows, the gulls, the rooks, and
ravens."--"What! broach'd to?" "Dead as a boil'd lobster."--"Odd's