Gregg laughed and lowered himself into an easy chair. "Superstition, after all, is a perfectly legitimate although rudimentary form of human enquiry. These good people want to believe in the Devil. At the least opportunity they evoke his satanic majesty. They[Pg 52] are quite right. They are simply using the only material in their minds in order to investigate a mystery.""Oh! I certainly didn't mean anything against you, Smith. Why is your manner so strange to me to-day? Oh, Smith, if you knew what--if I could speak to you in sacred confidence--I--I wouldn't injure Ned Ferry in your eyes, nor in anybody's; I only tell you what I do tell so you may help me to help him. But he's staying here, Smith, and keeping you here, to be near one whose name--without her a-dreaming of it--is already coupled with--why,--why, what made you start that a-way again, Smith?"
MRS. FLACK"The whale lashed about and then 'breached;' that is, he threw his great body out of the water, giving me a chance to get in a second harpoon. Then he soundedthat is, he went downand the lines ran out so fast that the side of the boat fairly smoked when they went over. He ran off two hundred fathoms of line before he stopped, and then we felt the line slack and knew he would soon be up again."My mother brought her to your house?"
