8
A SUPPOSED BEAR IN THE CABIN.
instant rush was making, when the always good and musical
sound of the captain's voice was recognized. " Why ! you
don't think I'm a grizly bear, do you ?" The good fellow !
he didn't intend to frighten anybody. He had just raised
the hatch and came down to get a little breath and a " drop
to drink." He is as unlike to a grizly bear as any one else
in the world, both in looks and in disposition; but he
happened to have on for the occasion a black oil-cloth hood
or cap, which was tied under the chin; and a jacket covered
with long fur on the outside, making his figure (which was
of goodly size, and which just filled the gangway), with a
little of the lively imagination belonging to such moments,
look the counterpart of a grizly bear. " Where's Catlin ?"
said he ; " damn the bears ! ' " Are they out ?" cried the
passengers all together. " Out ?—yes ; they have eaten
one man already, and another was knocked overboard with
a handspike ; he was mistaken for one of the bears. We are
all in a mess on deck—it's so dark we can't see each other—
the men are all aloft in the rigging. Steward ! give me
a glass of brandy-and-water—the ship must be managed,
and I must go on deck. Keep close below here, and keep
the hatches down, for the bruins are sick of the scene, and
pawing about for a burrow in the ground, and will have
the hatches up in a moment if you don't look to them.
Where's Catlin?" " We don't know," was the reply from
many mouths ; " he is not in the cabin."
"Will, here, Misther Captain, yer honour, I'll till ye,"
said a poor fellow, who in the general fright and flight had
tumbled himself by accident into the cabin, and observed
sullen silence until the present moment ; " I'll jist till ye—I
saw Misther Cathlin (I sippose he's the jintleman that owns the
bastes) and his mon Dan (for I've known Dan for these many
a long year in ould Amiriky, and I now he has chargin o' the
bears on board) ; I saw the two, God bliss them, when the
bastes was about gettin their hinder parts out of the cage,
stannin on the side jisth before 'em, Misther Cathlin with his
double-barrel gun, and his mon Dan pointin at 'em in the face,
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