"`A funny one? Eh?' said the mate. "`Well--no, not _very_ funny. But anything to pass the time, I suppose. I'll tell you a story of my own grey hairs.' "`Capital,' we cried, and hammered with our feet on the wooden floor, by way of giving him encouragement. Then we lit our pipes and prepared to listen." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. A TALE TOLD ON THE SEA OF ICE. "The mariner whose eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar." Coleridge. Scene: The good ship _Brilliant_ in the Doldrums. Crew at their Christmas dinner. The doctor continues his story. "`In the year 18--, I sailed from Hull in the good barque _Constance_, bound for Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, in pursuit of seals and walruses. I was a very young man then, and, indeed, white though my hair be and snowy my beard, I am not old yet. It is not age that has made me grey, but grief, and one of the most terrible experiences it has probably ever been the lot of man to undergo. "`Our voyage to the Arctic seas was a pleasant enough one. We did not encounter a single gale, and we made the country in less than a fortnight. We met the seals a little north of Mount Beerenberg, coming southward to the low pack ice in thousands; nay, but in millions; for the sea was black with their beautiful heads for miles on each side of our ship, and as far north as we could see from the masthead. Oh, didn't our hearts beat high then! We saw fortune within our reach, and had bright visions of a splendid voyage, a ship full to the hatches, with bings of skins on deck, and an early return to sunny England, our sweethearts and wives. We put about and followed the seals, and ere many days were past had the satisfaction of seeing them take the ice. There would soon be enough to fill all the ships in the Greenland fleet. We had but to wait a week or two until the young were big enough to capture. What a happy crew we were now! It was singing forward and laughing aft, all day long. But alas! and alas! for the fickleness of fortune, a wretched, greedy old Dutch ship came in, and no sooner saw the seals on the ice than she lowered her boats, and in spite of our remonstrances, proceeded to the ice. Twenty-four hours afterwards there was not one single seal, of all the myriads that had taken the ice, visible anywhere, above or below--the Dutch boats had scared them all away. It was all our captain and myself--I had only that spring got my certificate as mate--could do to prevent our men from boarding the Dutchman, and taking summary vengeance on that idiot skipper and his idiot crew.