Uncle
Abram said you had been everywhere."
Cap'n Amazon seemed to take a long breath, then cleared his throat, and
said:
"I've been pretty nigh everywhere. Seen some funny corners of the
world, too, Louise."
"You must tell me about your adventures," she said. "Your brother told
me that you ran away to sea when you were only twelve years old and
sailed on a long whaling voyage."
"Yep. _South Sea Belle_. Some old hooker, she was," said Cap'n Amazon
briskly. "We was out three year and come home with our hold bustin'
with ile, plenty of baleen, some sperm, and a lump of ambergris as big
as a nail keg--or pretty nigh."
Right then and there he launched into relating how the wondrous find of
ambergris came to be made, neglecting his breakfast to do so. He told
it so vividly that Louise was enthralled. The picture of the whaling
bark beating up to the dead and festering leviathan lying on the
surface of the ocean to which the exploding gases of decomposition had
brought the hulk, lived in her mind for days.
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