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Rodd shook his head. "I saw it plainly enough, uncle." And the skipper gave his head a sapient nod, while the doctor shook his. "What were you going to say, Captain Chubb?" "Only this 'ere, sir. I have 'eard more argufying and quarrelling about sea-sarpints than about almost anything else. I say sarpints, but I mean these things, and I say this.
There, gentlemen, that's no story to tell to the marines, but a fact that I have seen with my own eyes; and if there's things like that deep down in the seas, I don't see anything wonderful in there being what some people calls sea-sarpints that might be as big as a great sparmacetti whale; and if you put some of them beside a cable a hundred foot long there isn't much rope to spare.
"'I don't think it'll do no 'arm, ses the skipper, peering over the side, and speaking as though he knew all about sea-sarpints and their ways. "'S'pose it puts its 'ead over the side and takes one o' the men, ses the mate. "'Let me know at once, ses the skipper firmly; an' he went below agin and left us.
Do you think the monster will come up again?" "Can't say, sir, I'm sure, and to speak honest, there are times when I hope it will and there are times when I hope it won't. Sea-sarpints aren't much in my line. I have had a turn in a whaler, and though a right whale is a nasty kind of a bird to tackle when she is in her flurry, you know what you are about.
The captain growled more deeply than ever. "Sea-sarpint!" he said, in a tone of disgust. "There, hold your tongue, my lad. You're a naturalist, doctor; you haven't got no sea-sarpints in your books, have you?" "No," replied the doctor, handing the glass to one of the men, as he caught his longing eye. "But this must be a very curious fish, and it is evidently feeding.
Why, do you really suppose," said the captain, turning again to Robin, "that because they managed in '58 to lay a cable across the Atlantic, and exchange a few messages, which refused to travel after a few days, that they'll succeed in layin' down a permanent speakin' trumpet between old England and Noof'nland 2000 miles, more or less in spite o' gales an' currents, an' ships' anchors, an' insects, an' icebergs an' whales, to say nothing o' great sea-sarpints an' such like?"
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