"D--n it, Leach," he interrupted, "the man fancies that he is not good
eating, you make so many wry and out-of-the-way contortions. A sign is a
jury-mast for the tongue, and every seaman ought to know how to practise
them, in case he should be wrecked on a savage and unknown coast. Old Joe
Bunk had a dictionary of them, and in calm weather he used to go among his
horses and horned cattle, and talk with them by the hour. He made a
diagram of the language, and had it taught to all us younkers who were
exposed to the accidents of the bea. Now, I will try my hand on this Arab,
for I could never go to sleep while the honest black imagined we intended
to breakfast on him."

The captain now recommenced his own explanations in the language of
nature. He too described the process of cooking and eating the
prisoner--for this he admitted was indispensable by way of preface--and
then, to show his horror of such an act, he gave a very good
representation of a process he had often witnessed among his sea-sick
passengers, by way of showing his loathing of cannibalism in general, and
of eating this Arab in particular. By this time the man was thoroughly
alarmed, and by way of commentary on the captain's eloquence, he began to
utter wailings in his own language, and groans that were not to be
mistaken. To own the truth, Mr. Truck was a good deal mortified with this
failure, which, like all other unsuccessful persons, he was ready to
ascribe to anybody but himself.

"I begin to think, Mr. Leach," he said, "that this fellow is too stupid
for a spy or a scout, and that, after all, he is no more than a driveller
who has strayed from his tribe, from a want of sense to keep the road in a
desert. A man of the smallest information must have understood me, and yet
you perceive by his lamentations and outcries that he knows no more what I
said than if he were in another parallel of latitude. The chap has quite