Perhaps, however, the worthy fellow would have been amazed to hear that a certain Danish savant once possessed a dog that could actually pronounce quite distinctly nearly twenty different words, demonstrating that the construction of the glottis, the aperture at the top of the windpipe, was adapted for the emission of regular sounds: of course the animal attached no meaning to the words it uttered any more than a parrot or a jay can comprehend their own chatterings.
Thus, unconsciously, Dingo had become the hero of the hour. On several separate occasions Captain Hull repeated the experiment of spreading out the blocks before him, but invariably with the same result; the dog never failed, without the slightest hesitation, to pick out the two letters, leaving all the rest of the alphabet quite unnoticed.
Cousin Benedict alone, somewhat ostentatiously, professed to take no interest in the circumstance.
“You cannot suppose,” he said to Captain Hull, after various repetitions of the trick, “that dogs are to be reckoned the only animals endowed with intelligence. Rats, you know, will always leave a sinking ship, and beavers invariably raise their dams before the approach of a flood. Did not the horses of Nicomedes, Scanderberg and Oppian die of grief for the loss of their masters? Have there not been instances of donkeys with wonderful memories? Birds, too, have been trained to do the most remarkable things; they have been taught to write word after word at their master’s dictation; there are cockatoos who can count the people in a room as accurately as a mathematician; and haven’t you heard of the old Cardinal’s parrot that he would not part with for a hundred gold crowns because it could repeat the Apostles’ creed from beginning to end without a blunder? And insects,” he continued, warming into enthusiasm, “how marvellously they vindicate the axiom—
‘In minimis maximus Deus!’
Are not the structures of ants the very models for the architects of a city? Has the diving-bell of the aquatic Argyroneta ever been surpassed by the invention of the most skilful student of mechanical art? And cannot fleas go through a drill and fire a gun as well as the most accomplished artilleryman? This Dingo is nothing out of the way. I suppose he belongs to some unclassed species of mastiff. Perhaps one day or other he may come to be identified as the ‘Canis alphabeticus’ of New Zealand.”
The worthy entomologist delivered this and various similar harangues; but Dingo, nevertheless, retained his high place in the general estimation, and by the occupants of the forecastle was regarded as little short of a phenomenon. The feeling, otherwise universal, was not in any degree shared by Negoro, and it is not improbable that the man would have been tempted to some foul play with the dog if the open sympathies of the crew had not kept him in check. More than ever he studiously avoided coming in contact in any way with the animal, and Dick Sands in his own mind was quite convinced that since the incident of the letters, the cook’s hatred of the dog had become still more intense.
After continual alternations with long and wearisome calms the northeast wind perceptibly moderated, and on the 10th, Captain Hull really began to hope that such a change would ensue as to allow the schooner to run straight before the wind. Nineteen days had elapsed since the Pilgrim had left Auckland, a period not so long but that with a favourable breeze it might be made up at last. Some days however were yet to elapse before the wind veered round to the anticipated quarter.
It has been already stated that this portion of the Pacific is almost always deserted. It is out of the line of the American and Australian steam-packets, and except a whaler had been brought into it by some such exceptional circumstances as the Pilgrim, it was quite unusual to see one in this latitude.
But, however void of traffic was the surface of the sea, to none but an unintelligent mind could it appear monotonous or barren of interest. The poetry of the ocean breathes forth in its minute and almost imperceptible changes. A marine plant, a tuft of seaweed lightly furrowing the water, a drifting spar with its unknown history, may afford unlimited scope for the imagination; every little drop passing, in its process of evaporation, backwards and forwards from sea to sky, might perchance reveal its own special secret; and happy are those minds which are capable of a due appreciation of the mysteries of air and ocean.
Above the surface as well as below, the restless flood is ever teeming with animal life; and the passengers on board the Pilgrim derived no little amusement from watching great flocks of birds migrating northwards to escape the rigour of the polar winter, and ever and again descending in rapid flight to secure some tiny fish. Occasionally Dick Sands would take a pistol, and now and then a rifle, and, thanks to Mr. Weldon’s former instructions, would bring down various specimens of the feathered tribe.
Sometimes white petrels would congregate in considerable numbers near the schooner; and sometimes petrels of another species, with brown borders on their wings, would come in sight; now there would be flocks of damiers skimming the water; and now groups of penguins, whose clumsy gait appears so ludicrous on shore; but, as Captain Hull pointed out, when their stumpy wings were employed as fins, they were a match for the most rapid of fish, so that sailors have often mistaken them for bonitos.
High overhead, huge albatrosses, their outspread wings measuring ten feet from tip to tip, would soar aloft, thence to swoop down towards the deep, into which they plunged their beaks in search of food. Such incidents and scenes as these were infinite in their variety, and it was accordingly only for minds that were obtuse to the charms
