30 A YEAR WITH A WHALER 



posed to have been buried there by Bugs " 

 Thompson and Benito Bonito, those one-time 

 terrors of the Spanish Main. He had been cast 

 away in the South Seas in an open boat with 

 three companions, and had eaten the flesh of the 

 man whose fate had been sealed by the casting 

 of lots. He was some man, was Nelson. I some- 

 times vaguely suspected he was some liar, too, 

 but I don't know. I think most of his stories 

 were true. 



He could do deftly everything intricate and 

 subtle in sailorcraft from tying the most won- 

 derful knots to splicing wire. None of the offi- 

 cers could teach old Nelson anything about 

 fancy sailorizing and they knew it. Whenever 

 they wanted an unusual or particularly difficult 

 piece of work done they called on him, and he 

 always did it in the best seamanly fashion. 



Richard, the German, was a sturdy, manly 

 young chap who had served in the German navy. 

 He was well educated and a smart seaman. Ole 

 Oleson, the Norwegian, was just out of his teens 

 but a fine sailor. Peter Swenson, a Swede, was 

 a chubby, rosy boy of sixteen, an ignorant, reck- 



