But in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge; or be suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she had been there from all eternity.
Useless to inquire, "Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo ?" For no sweet rejoinder would she give.
But now the problem was solved.

Here, in this silent cask in the hold, Annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a stone.
Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about: whether she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved to this unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could tell.

Can you?
Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in building their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a fool of a sage.
Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?
.