While the whaler to which I belonged was lying at Honolulu I one day went for a long out of sight and hearing of the numerous amusements of the town, and late in the afternoon found myself several miles to the southward of it. Emerging from the pathway through which I had been struggling with the luxuriant greenery, I struck the sand of a lovely little bight that commanded an uninterrupted view to seaward. Less than a mile out a reef of black rocks occasionally bared their ugly for a brief space amidst the waters, until the sleepily advancing , finding its progress thus hindered, rose high over their grim summits in a league-long fleece of dazzling , whose spray glittered like jewels in the diagonal rays of the declining sun.  
Upon a little left by the tide sat a man staring out to sea. As I drew near, my approach making no noise upon the yielding sand, I saw that he was white. By his rig—a shirt and trousers, big grass hat, and bare feet—I took him for a beach-comber. These characters are not often desirable companions—human weeds cast ashore in such places, and getting a living in dark and ways without work. But I felt inclined for company and a rest after my long tramp, so I made for him direct. He raised his head at my nearing him, showing a grizzled beard framing a weather-beaten face as of a man some sixty years old. There was a , boiled look about his face, too, as if he had once been drowned, by no means pleasant to see.
 
He gave me “Good evening!” cheerfully enough as I sat down beside him and offered my plug of tobacco. Cutting himself a liberal quid, he returned it with the , “B’long ter wun er the spouters, I persoom?” “Yes,” I replied; “boat-header in the Cachalot.” “Ah,” he replied instantly, “but ’re no Yank, neow, air ye?” “No, I’m a Cockney—little as you may think that likely,” said I; “but it’s a fact.” “Wall, I don’no,” he drawled, “I’ve a-met Cockneys good’s I want ter know; ’n’ why not?”
 
The conversation then drifted from topic to topic in an aimless, time-killing fashion, till at last, feeling better acquainted, I ventured to ask him what had given him that glazy, soaked appearance, so strange and ghastly to see. “Look a-heah, young feller,” said he , “heouw old je reckon I mout be?” Without the slightest I replied, “Sixty, or thereabouts.” He gave a quiet , and then said slowly, “Wall, I doan’ blame ye, nuther; ’n’ as to feelin’—wall, sumtimes I feel ’s if I’d ben a-livin’ right on frum the beginnin’ ov things. My age, which ’s about the one solid fact I freeze onter now’days, is thutty-two. Yew won’t b’lieve it, of course; but thet’s nothin’ ter what ye will hear, ef yew wait awhile.
 
“What I’m goin’ ter tell ye happened—lemme see—wall, I doan’no—mebbe two, mebbe four er five year sence. I wuz mate of a pearlin’ b’longin’ ter Levuka, lyin’ daouwn to Rotumah. we’d ben workin’ the reef wuz middlin’ deep—deep ’nuf ter make eour b’ys fall on deck when they come up with a load, ’n’ lie there like dead uns fer ’bout ten minnits befo’ they k’d move ag’in. ’Twuz slaughterin’ divin’; but the shell wuz thick, ’n’ no mistake; ’n’ eour ole man wuz a hustler—s’long’s he got shell he didn’t vally a few dern Kanakers peggin’ eout neow ’n’ then. We’d alost three with sharks, ’n’ ef ’twan’t thet th’ b’ys wuz more skeered of old Hardhead than they wuz of anythin’ else I doan reckon we sh’d a-got any more stuff thet trip ’t all. But ’z he warn’t the kind er blossom to play any games on, they kep’ at it, ’n’ we ’uz fillin’ up fast. The land was ’bout ten mile off, ’n’ they wuz ’bout fifty, er mebbe sixty water b’tween the reef we wuz fishin’ on ’n’ the neares’ p’int. Wall, long ’bout eight bells in the afternoon I uz a-stannin’ by the door watchin’ a Kanaker crawlin’ inboard very slow, bein’ ’most done up. Five er six ov ’em uz hangin’ roun’ ’bout ter start below agen, ’n’ th’ ole man uz a-blarsfemion gashly at ’em fer bein’ so slow. Right in the middle of his sermont I seed ’im go green in the face, ’n’ make a step back from the rail, with both hans helt up in front ov ’im ’s if he uz skeered ’most ter de’th. ’N’ he wuz, too. There cum lickin’ inboard after him a long grey slitherin’ thing like a snake ’ith no head but a lot uv saucers stuck onto it bottom up. ’N’ befo’ I’d time ter move, bein’ ’most sort er paralised, several more ov the dern things uz a-sneakin’ around all over the deck. The fust one got the skipper good ’n’ tight ’ith a round turn above his arms, ’n’ I saw him a-slidin’ away. The schooner wuz a-rollin’ ’s if in a big swell—which there warn’t a sign of, ’s I c’d see. But them snaky grey things went quicker ’n’ thinkin’ all over her, ’n’ befo’ yew c’d say ‘knife’ every galoot, includin’ me, wuz agoin’ ’long with ’em back to where they’d come from.
 
“Say, d’yew ever wake up all alive, ’cep’ yew couldn’ move ner speak, only know all wuts goin’ on, ’n’ do the pow’flest thinkin’ ’bout things yew ever did in yer life? Yes, ’n’ that’s haow I wuz then. When thet cold gristly sarpint cum cuddlin’ roun’ me, ’n’ the saucers got onto me ’s if they’d suck out me very bow’ls, I’d a gi’n Mount Morgan ter died; but I couldn’t ev’n go mad. I saw the head ov the Thing them arms b’long’d ter, ’n’ ’twuz wuss ’n the horrors, ’cause I wuz ’n’ cool ’n’ collected. The eyes wuz black, ’n’ a foot or more across, ’n’ when I looked into ’em I see meself a-comin’.”
 
He was silent for a minute, but shaking as if with palsy. I laid my hand on his arm, not knowing what to say, and he looked up wistfully, saying, “Thenks, shipmate; thet’s good.” Then he went on again.
 
“The whole thing went back’ards, takin’ us along; ’n I remember thinkin’ ez we went of[355] the other Kanakers below thet hedn’t come back. I he’rd the bubbles ’s each of us left the sunshine, but never a cry, never another soun’. The las’ thing I remember seein’ ’bove me wuz th’ end of the schooner’s mainboom, which wuz guyed out to larberd some, ’n’ looked like a big arm struck stiff an’ helpless, though wishful to save. Down I went, that clingin’ snaky coil round me tighter ’n my skin. But wut wuz strangest ter me wuz the fact that not only I didn’t drown, but I felt no sort er disconvenience frum bein’ below the water. ’N’ at last when I reached the coral, though I dessay I looked enough, ’twuz only my looks, fur I felt, lackin’ my not bein’ able ter move, breathe, er speak, ez peart ’n’ fresh ez I dew naow. The clutch thet hed ben squeezin’ me so all-fired tight begun to slack, ’n’ I felt more comf’ble; ’n’ ef ’t ’adn’t ben fer the reck’lection uv them eyes ’n’ thet berryin’-groun’ ov a mouth, I doan’no but wut I might ha’ been a’most happy. But I lay thar, with the rest uv my late shipmates, sort er............