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Updated: May 3, 2025
"Blowed up with gunpowder, and shattered to a thousand pieces," said Tom Lokins, raising his voice with excitement, as he read from his paper an account of the blowing up of a mountain fortress in India. "Oh! come, I say, one at a time, if you please," cried a harpooner; "a feller can't git a word of sense out of sich a jumble."
Now, when this process was going on, a new point of interest arose which I had not thought of before, although my messmate, Tom Lokins, had often spoken of it on the voyage out. This was the arrival of great numbers of sea-birds.
The captain laughed, and, looking up at the sky, said: "I don't like the look of the weather, Tom Lokins. You're a sharp fellow, and have been in these seas before; what say you?" "We'll have a breeze," replied Tom, briefly. "More than a breeze," muttered the captain, while a look of grave anxiety overspread his countenance; "I'll go below and take a squint at the glass."
A lantern had been fastened to the end of an oar and set up in the boat, and by its faint light I could see that the men looked very grave. Tom Lokins was steering, and I sat near him, pulling the aft oar. "Do you think we've any chance, Tom?" said I. A shake of the head was his only reply.
Tom Lokins was steering, and I sat near him, pulling the aft oar. "Do you think we've any chance, Tom?" said I. A shake of the head was his only reply. "It must have been here away," said the mate, who stood up in the bow with a coil of rope at his feet, and a boat-hook in his hand. "Hold on, lads, did any one hear a cry?" No one answered.
Just then Tom Lokins came up, ordered Fred to go and attend to the fires, sat down opposite to me on the windlass, and began to "lay down the law" in regard to storms. "You see, Bob Ledbury," said he, beginning to fill his pipe, "young fellers like you don't know nothin' about the weather 'cause why? you've got no experience. Now, I'll put you up to a dodge consarning this very thing."
I noticed, however, that, for all their pretended indifference, there was not one man among them not even Tom Lokins himself who would go down below to relight the lantern for at least a quarter of an hour afterwards! Feeling none the worse for my fall, I went forward and leaned over the bow of the ship, where I was much astonished by the appearance of the sea.
"But, I say, how much is that?" inquired Tom Lokins.
Tom Lokins filled his pipe, stretched out his foot to poke the fire with the toe of his shoe, and began to smoke like a steam-engine; then I cleared my throat and began my tale, and before I had done talking that night, I had told them all that I have told in this little book to you, good reader, almost word for word. Thus ended my first voyage to the South Seas.
"It's not a glass o' grog, you may be sure; nor yet a lookin'-glass. It's the weather-glass, boy. Shore-goin' chaps call it a barometer." "And what's the meaning of barometer?" I inquired earnestly. Tom Lokins stared at me in stupid amazement. "Why, boy," said he, "you're too inquisitive.
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