’Yes; but not more than might easily be borne.  It didn’t seem like biting—­more like the strong, hard grip of a vice than any thing else—­puncture quite lost in constriction.  My viznomy, I am told, was a study:  supreme disgust, tempered with divine philosophy.’

‘And how on earth did you get away from him?’

’By not trying to; kept as still as a mouse, till he had bitten all he wanted to, which took about a minute.  Then he let go, and walked quietly off, to see if he couldn’t bite somebody else.  I afterward improved our acquaintance by giving him sugar-cane and a licking or two; but he was always an ill-conditioned brute, not amenable to reason, and when we came to New York, gave no end of trouble, by getting over the side and running up the North River on the ice—­I dare say he scented the Catskills—­the whole waterside whooping and hallooing in chase after him.  Ah!  I could tell you a better story than that, of a wild beast aboard a ship!’

‘Do, then.’

’It was told me by an ancient mariner, who knows how many years ago? for I’m getting to be an old fellow myself, children.’

‘What nonsense, Dick! talk about your being old.’

’Well, never mind.  I’ll try to give it to you in his own words.  Said he: 

“I never see a nigger turn white but once, and that was aboard of the old ‘Emperor.’  We was bound from Calcutta, to Boston, and had aboard an elephant, a big Bengal tiger, and a lot of other wild creturs, for a menagerie.  Well, one forenoon, blowing a good topsail breeze, as it might be to-day, but more sea than wind, we was going large, and I up on the main-yard, turning in a splice.  All to once, I heerd a strange noise, and looked down.  There was the black cook, shinning of it up, making a great hullibaloo, and shaking the tormentors behind him—­that’s a big iron fork he has in the galley.  His face was as white as a table-cloth.  Close behind him was the tiger, who had got out of his cage somehow, and, snuffing the grub, had made tracks for the coppers.

“All the watch, by this time, was tumbling up the rigging, fore and aft.  The tiger he tried two or three of the ratlins, but thought it onsafe, so he let himself down, mighty careful, to the deck.  The companion-way was open, and he dived into the cabin.  The captain lay asleep on the transom, and never waked up.  The cretur didn’t touch him, but come up agin, and poked his nose into, the door of the mate’s room, that was a little on the jar.  The mate see him, and gin him a kick in the face, and slammed the door agin him.  That made him mad, and he tried to get in at the little window; but his head was so big, he couldn’t begin.  Did you ever mind what eyes them devils has?  They’ve got a kind of cruel, murderin’ look that no other beast has, that I ever see.  Well, he give it up, and went aft.  Then, a kind of a sick feelin’ come over me; for, d’ye see, there was one man that couldn’t leave no way!’