"Well, as I was saying, the shark did not bite off my leg; the delay would, at all events, have been inconvenient had he done so. I stroked his cheeks, and he looked up most lovingly into my face with his piercing eyes, and then, after he had floundered back into the water, I got on his back and away we went out to sea towards my ship. My companions were delighted to see me; the wonder was how they got on without me. When we dropped our anchor, King Rumfiz and Queen Pillow, with my wife the Princess Chickchick, came off in a canoe to the ship, and very much surprised they were to see me on board, not knowing that my pet shark was in company. My little wife, indeed, thought I was a ghost, and in her fright jumped overboard, when she was as near as possible sharing the fate of poor Oilyblubbina, and would have done so had I not leaped after her and saved her. Not to disappoint my pet, we gave him afterwards half a dozen fat hogs, which he infinitely preferred. The captain was so generous with his liquor, that he sent my royal father and mother-in-law on shore roaring drunk. They were so happy that they insisted on having a ball at the palace, for which purpose I issued a decree summoning all the principal people of the island; and a jolly night we had of it too, the old king toeing-it and heeling-it away right merrily in the centre of a circle of his admiring subjects. Everything must have an end, so had my residence in the island. As I had begun to get rather tired of the monotony of my life on shore, I determined to make a voyage for the benefit of my health." "Did you take your wife with you?" asked Gogles, who had swallowed every word uttered by the boatswain. "My wife? Oh no; I left her on shore for the benefit of hers. Poor thing, she cried very much when I went away; it was the last time I saw her." "How was that, Mr Johnson?" enquired Grey, "you seem to have been unfortunate with your wives." "Yes, indeed, I was," replied the unhappy widower; "I have had ten of them, too. When I came back, I found that the island had been attacked by the savages, who had carried off my wife and eaten her. It's a fact. If they had had a reform, and kept me and my gun among them, it wouldn't have happened--of that I'm certain. Having taken in a supply of wood, water, and provisions, the Lady Stiggins once more made sail for the southward." "I wonder you survived all your misfortunes, Mr Johnson," observed Spellman, who, next to Gogles and Toby Bluff, seemed to place the most perfect belief in the boatswain's veracious narratives, as he was pleased to designate his amusing inventions.