He laughed comfortably. “Still thinking o’ that, lad?” he asked. “You ’d best forget it. It ’s all in the day’s work. The others have forgot it long ago. Whales ’d be poor sort o’ critters if they did n’t get the better of us some o’ the time. When you come to think of it, it ’s a wonder we ever get a whale. Why, they ought to kill us all, and they would if they had any brains in that monstrous head of theirs.” {313} CHAPTER XXXII For some time Captain Coffin was excited and restless; even more restless than usual, and he was always a restless and active man. Although he would sometimes sit still for long periods, he left you with the impression of activity, of tension, as though he was prepared instantly for anything. At such times his eyes were very bright, and from time to time his head turned alertly. I had no doubt that he was hatching possible plans for the recapture of the Battles, or, at any rate, that his brain was seething with ideas, probably chaotic, which he was trying to reduce to something like order. We were in the seas for which he was certain that she was bound, the one refuge of every mutinous or piratical crew. All of us had been thinking more or less of the Battles. My own thoughts, I remember, were about equally divided between her and cannibalism. Cannibalism always has a peculiar fascination for the minds of young and old, although we older people pretend that it is the scientific side, the history of the race, and the origin of the practice that fascinates us. For a boy it is the gruesomeness that fascinates, and I made no pretense about it. We had passed the Solomons, about which I had heard various horrible tales, and were passing the Fijis. We did not even see the Fijis, although I stood at the rail for about two hours, straining my eyes to the eastward for a possible sight of them, while the brisk trade wind blew in my face. I got something out of it: dreams of coral islands, and of breadfruit and coconuts, and the soothing of that great, steady wind upon my spirit. I do not know what Captain Coffin got out of it. I saw him standing at the main rigging, doing the same thing. {314}