In the midst of the noise and turbulence, a voice was heard, apparently issuing from the ocean, hailing the vessel by name, with the aid of a speaking-trumpet that had been applied to the outer circumference of a hawse hole. “Who speaks the ‘Dolphin?’” demanded Wilder in reply, when he perceived that the summons had fallen on the dull ears of his Commander, without recalling him to the recollection of what was in action. “Father Neptune is under your fore-foot.” “What wills’ the God?” “He has heard that certain strangers have come into his dominions, and he wishes leave to come aboard the saucy ‘Dolphin,’ to inquire into their errands, and to overhaul the log-book of their characters.” “He is welcome. Show the old man aboard through the head; he is too experienced a sailor to wish to come in by the cabin windows.” Here the parlance ceased; for Wilder turned upon his heel, as though he were already disgusted with his part of the mummery. An athletic seaman soon appeared, seemingly issuing from the element whose deity he aspired to personate. Mops, dripping with brine, supplied the place of hoary locks; gulf-weed, of which acres were floating within a league of the ship, composed a sort of negligent mantle; and in his hand he bore a trident made of three marling-spikes properly arranged and borne on the staff of a half-pike. Thus accoutred, the God of the Ocean, who was no less a personage than the captain of the forecastle, advanced with a suitable air of dignity, along the deck attended by a train of bearded water-nymphs and naïades, in a costume no less grotesque than his own. Arrived on the quarter-deck, in front of the position occupied by the officers, the principal personage saluted the groupe with a wave of his sceptre, and resumed the discourse as follows; Wilder, from the continued abstraction of his Commander, finding himself under the necessity of maintaining one portion of the dialogue. “A wholesome and prettily-rigged boat have you come out in this time, my son; and one well tilled with a noble set of my children. How long might it be since you left the land?” “Some eight days ago.” “Hardly time enough to give the green ones the use of their sea legs. I shall be able to find them, by the manner in which they hold on in a calm.” [Here the General, who was standing with a scornful and averted eye, let go his hold of a mizzen-shroud, which he had grasped for no other visible reason than to render his person utterly immoveable; Neptune smiled, and continued.] “I sha’n’t ask concerning the port you are last from, seeing that the Newport soundings are still hanging about the flukes of your anchors. I hope you haven’t brought out many fresh hands with you, for I smell the stock-fish aboard a Baltic-man, who is coming down with the trades, and who can’t be more than a hundred leagues from this; I shall therefore have but little time to overhaul your people, in order to give them their papers.”