The Golden Magnet Part 4

"Wouldn't there, Mas'r Harry?" he cried eagerly.

"A tremendous deal more, Tom. Every poor fellow might have an estate of his own; but where would you drain the water to?"

"Where would I drain the water to, Mas'r Harry?"

"To be sure," I said, enjoying his puzzled look. "If you take it away from here you must send it somewhere else."

"Of course, Mas'r Harry, of course," he replied eagerly. "Oh, I'd employ thousands of navvies to dig a big drain and let the water right off."

"Yes, I understand that," I replied; "but where is the drain to lead?"

"Where's the drain to lead?"

"Yes; where is the water to run?"

"Where's the water to run?" said Tom, scratching his head. "Where's the water to run, Mas'r Harry? Why, I never thought of that."

"No, Tom, you never thought of that; and you can't alter it, so it is of no use to grumble."

"Don't you two young fellows slacken your hold there," said a sailor, looking over at us.

"'Taint likely, is it?" said Tom grinning; "why, where should we be if we did?"

"Down at the bottom some day," growled the sailor as he walked away, and Tom looked at me.

"Just as if it was likely that a fellow would let go and try and drown hisself, Mas'r Harry. Think it's deep here?" he added as he gazed down into the dense blue water.

"Yes, Tom, very," I replied, gazing down as well, for the water was beautifully transparent, and the foam left by the bows of the steamer sparkled in the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne as we rushed along.

"Deep, Tom?" I said, "yes, very."

"How deep, Mas'r Harry; forty or fifty foot?"

"Two or three miles, p'r'aps, Tom," I replied.

"Go along! Two or three miles indeed!" he said, laughing.

"I don't know that it is here, Tom," I continued, "but I believe they have found the depth nearly double that in some places."

"What! have they measured it, Mas'r Harry?"

"Yes, Tom."

"With a bit of string?"

"With a sounding-line, Tom."

"And a bit of lead at the end?"

"Yes, Tom, a sounding-lead with a great bullet, which they left at the bottom when they pulled the line in again."

"Think o' that, now!" cried Tom. "Why, I was wondering whether a fellow couldn't go down in a diving-bell and see what the bottom was like, and look at the fishes--say, Mas'r Harry, some of 'em must be whoppers."

"Ay, my lad," said the same sailor who had before spoken, and he rested his arms on the bulwark and stared down at us; "there's some big chaps out at sea here."

"Could we catch some of 'em?" asked Tom.

"Oh, yes," said the sailor. "Dessay you could, my lad, but I wouldn't advise you to try a sixpenny fis.h.i.+ng-line with a cork float and a three-joint hazel rod with a whalebone top--you know that sort, eh?"

"Know it? I should think I do," cried Tom. "So does Mas'r Harry here.

We used to ketch the gudgeons like hooroar down in the sharp water below the mill up at home."

"Ah!" said the sailor, "so used I when I was a boy; but there ain't no gudgeons here."

"What sort o' fish are there, then?" said Tom.

"Oh, all sorts: bonito, and albicore, and flying-fish, sometimes dolphins and sharks."

"Any whales?" cried Tom, winking at me.

"Sometimes; not very often, my lad," said the sailor quietly. "They lies up in the cold water, more among the ice. We're getting every day more into the warm."

"I'm sorry there ar'n't any whales," said Tom. "How long might they be, say the biggest you ever see?"

"Oh!" said the sailor, "they mostly runs thirty or forty foot long, but I saw one once nearly eighty-foot."

"What a whopper!" said Tom, giving me a droll look.

"Sounds big," said the sailor, "but out here in the ocean, my lad, seventy or eighty-foot only seems to be a span long, and no size at all, while the biggest shark I ever see--"

"How long was that?" said Tom; "a hundred foot?"

"No," said the sailor drily; "he was eighteen-foot long--a long, thin, hungry-looking fellow, with a mouth and jaws that would have taken off one of your legs like a shot."

"Well, but if an eighty-foot whale don't look big," said Tom, "an eighteen-foot shark must be quite a shrimp."

"Ah! you wouldn't think so," said the sailor quietly, "if you were overboard and one of 'em after you."

"But I thought you'd got monsters out here at sea," said Tom, giving me another of his cunning looks, as much as to say, "You see how I'll lead him on directly."

"So we have," said the sailor, staring straight out before him, "only it don't do to talk about 'em."

"Why?" I said quickly, for the man's quiet, serious way impressed me.

"Well, you see, sir," he replied, "if a man says he's seen a monster out at sea, and it isn't a whale which people knows of, having been seen, they say directly he's a liar, and laugh at him, and that isn't pleasant."

"Of course not," I replied, "if he is telling the truth."