Sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, I lighted upon sundry out-of-the-way hiding places of Annatoo’s; where were snugly secreted divers articles, with which she had been smitten.  In truth, no small portion of the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its own bowels.  I found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain’s, hidden away in the hollow heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most touchingly natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a breaker, discovered several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied together with cords almost strong enough to sustain the mainmast.

Near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down into this part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as Charles the First.  And herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a discovery which accounted for what had often proved an enigma.  Not seldom Annatoo had been among the missing; and though, from stem to stern, loudly invoked to come forth and relieve the poignant distress of her anxious friends, the dame remained perdu; silent and invisible as a spirit.  But in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge; or be suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she had been there from all eternity.

Useless to inquire, “Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo?” For no sweet rejoinder would she give.

But now the problem was solved.  Here, in this silent cask in the hold, Annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a stone.

Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about:  whether she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved to this unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could tell.  Can you?

Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in building their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a fool of a sage.

Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?

CHAPTER XXXII Xiphius Platypterus

About this time, the loneliness of our voyage was relieved by an event worth relating.

Ever since leaving the Pearl Shell Islands, the Parki had been followed by shoals of small fish, pleasantly enlivening the sea, and socially swimming by her side.  But in vain did Jarl and I search among their ranks for the little, steel-blue Pilot fish, so long outriders of the Chamois.  But perhaps since the Chamois was now high and dry on the Parki’s deck, our bright little avant-couriers were lurking out of eight, far down in the brine; racing along close to the keel.

But it is not with the Pilot fish that we now have to do.

One morning our attention was attracted to a mighty commotion in the water.  The shoals of fish were darting hither and thither, and leaping into the air in the utmost affright.  Samoa declared, that their deadly foe the Sword fish must be after them.