CHAPTER VI.
A WHALE IN SIGHT.
It will be remembered that this singular incident was made, more than once, the subject of conversation held in the stern of the "Pilgrim" between Mrs.Weldon, Captain Hull, and the young novice.

The latter, more particularly, experienced an instinctive mistrust with regard to Negoro, whose conduct, meanwhile, merited no reproach.
In the prow they talked of it also, but they did not draw from it the same conclusions.

There, among the ship's crew, Dingo passed merely for a dog that knew how to read, and perhaps even write, better than more than one sailor on board.

As for talking, if he did not do it, it was probably for good reasons that he kept silent.
"But, one of these fine days," says the steersman, Bolton, "one fine day that dog will come and ask us how we are heading; if the wind is to the west-north-west-half-north, and we will have to answer him! There are animals that speak! Well, why should not a dog do as much if he took it into his head?
It is more difficult to talk with a beak than with a mouth!" "No doubt," replied the boatswain, Howik.

"Only it has never been known." It would have astonished these brave men to tell them that, on the contrary, it had been known, and that a certain Danish servant possessed a dog which pronounced distinctly twenty words.