she was, for my ole man he 'd shipped bo'sun o' the Raglan, las' time she weighed—'Jack,' says the ole woman to me, an' the tears rollin' down her face—it'll be goin' on five year ago now—'Jack,' says she; 'promise me you'll always make a bit of a prayer before turnin'-in; for the Lord says anybody that 's ashamed o' Him, He'll be ashamed o' him at the day o' judgment.' Awful—ain't it? Course, I promised, but it went in o' one ear, an' out o' the other, till about two year after, when I got word she was dead. I was on Runnymede then—for I come straight here when I bolted from the ship—an' I begun to bethink myself that she could see how I was keepin' my promise; so I braced-up, an' laid a bit closer. Lord knows, I gev her worry enough while she was alive, without follerin' her up any furder." I have taken some trouble in weeding the language of Jack's confession, so as not to destroy its consecutiveness.
And, co-existing in the worthy fellow's mind with this childlike simplicity, was a really fine store of the best kind of knowledge, namely, that acquired from observation and experience. It is surprising how much a landsman, however well-informed, may gather from a sailor when he listens like a three-years' child, and the mariner hath his will. I only wish I was as well posted up in devil-fish, stingarees, krakens, and other marine commonplaces, as I am—thanks to Jack's information—in the man-o'-war hawk and the penguin. It came about in this way:
The door was left open for ventilation when we retired to rest, Jack in his bunk, and I on the floor. We were both asleep, when I became aware of an icy touch on my face, accompanied by a breath strongly suggesting to my scientific nose the hydro-carburetted oxy-chloro-phosphate of dead bullock. Drowsily opening one eye, I saw Pup standing by my side. He had thought I was dead; but, finding his mistake, he walked away through the gloom with an injured and dissatisfied air, and began trying to root the lid off Jack's camp-oven with his pointed nose. One peculiarity of the kangaroo-dog is, that though he has no faculty of scent at the service of his master, he can smell food through half-inch boiler-plate; and he rivals Trenck or Monte Cristo in making way through any obstacle which may stand between him and the object of his desires.
The clattering of the oven-lid roused Jack. He looked up, and then left his bed.
"Pore creature's hungry," is near enough what he said. He opened a sort of safe, and took out all the cooked mutton, which he divided into two unequal portions, then gave the smaller share to his own dog, and the larger to Pup. "Bit evener on your keel after you've stowed that in your hold," he soliloquised profanely.
"Thank-you, Jack!" said I. "Would you just see that everything's safe from him before you turn-in again. There's always a siege of Jerusalem going on in his inside. The kangaroo-dog's the hungriest subject in the animal kingdom."
"Well, no," replied Jack forbearingly, as he returned to his bed; "he ain't in it with the man-o'-war hawk. That's the hungriest subject goin'; though, strictly speakin', he don't belong to no kingdom in particular; he belongs to the high seas. If you 'd 'a' had a chance to
