stretching out to sea, upon which the long roll of the Atlantic swell
fell with a deep, sullen roar. Beyond the spit was a quiet lagoon, and
there was an opening through the line of breakers.
He paddled slowly in, keeping clear of the surf, poking his head up
now and then to get his bearings correctly. Upon the inner end of the
bar he saw three strange forms. They were absurd-looking creatures
with long legs and bills, their heads having light gray penciled
feathers giving them the appearance of being bald, as their wings and
breasts were dark. Their large eyes were watching the incoming tide
as it swirled through the inlet, and when they saw him they set up a
vast noise of protest, scolding loudly and threatening him. He felt
instinctively that these birds were timid creatures in spite of their
fierce threats, and a sudden movement toward them sent them shrieking
away in terror. This amused him, and he went in through the smooth
water unmolested.
Inside the lagoon was a long stretch of shoal water. Sculling along
close to the bottom so that but a few inches were between him and the
hard sand, he went swiftly up the sound. A great sand shark lay in
front of him, his long body barely moving, the sunlight playing upon
his flanks and his dorsal fin just awash. The loggerhead gave him a
brush with his paddle as he went past and the great fish shot ahead a
full fathom with the touch. He was not used to being brushed against,
and it startled him. Then he turned and chopped at the turtle, but his
teeth met the armor of shell and several broke with the impact. The
loggerhead went steadily on. The water was now getting warmer again and
the sunshine made it very bright, for it was shoal and the white sand
reflected the rays from the bottom, hurting his eyes with the glare.
He found a sloping beach and hauled lazily out into the heat of a
cloudless day.
The quiet of the lagoon was attractive to the turtle. He spent many
days drifting about its shallow depths feeding upon the drift-weed and
small shell-fish the tide drove into the inlet. He was well content to
lie upon the surface and watch the shear-waters go sailing past, their
beaks skimming the smooth sea, the tips sometimes cutting like a knife
through the yielding medium, ready to snatch up any unwary mullet or
small fry that happened upon the surface in their path. Often a great
pelican would come in from the sea and fish for a few hours over the
schools of mullet or whiting until with heavy pouch and tired pinions
he would withdraw to the sand-spit to gorge himself with the tender
morsels.
The loggerhead was amused at the harried schools of fish as they
scurried in terror for a shelter. He felt his superiority over all the
other denizens of the lagoon, and the poor little creatures hurrying in
terror from the destroyers filled him as before with disdain.
One day a fishing schooner hove to off the inlet. Boats were lowered
and a long seine placed in them. The net was very strong and its
leadline so heavy it took eight men to haul it. They headed slowly
in for the inlet and lay off the entrance for some time waiting for
the tide to favor an attempt to make the opening through the breakers.
They headed the long rollers, rowing easily, and one man stood in the
bow of the leading boat watching the shoaling water, ready to warn the
helmsman in time to prevent getting ashore.
Soon they saw the way clear ahead and the rowers put some strength into
their stroke, sending the small craft rapidly in. They went through the
entrance safely, although a breaker rolling close to the outer edge of
the sand-spit half filled the leading boat. Then they rested on their
oars and began to clear the net.
The loggerhead was far away up the lagoon when the fishermen entered.
He saw them as they were stretching the seine across the entrance of
the inlet and watched them haul it slowly up the slue, driving all the
fish before them. The mullet were jumping in terror and the whiting
were hurrying for the shoal water half a mile away. The great sand
shark who lay off the entrance saw the closing trap in time to make a
lunge past the end of the line, splashing the man in the bow with a
vigorous slap of his tail as he swung across and clear. He made a chop
at the trailing net, but missed it in his hurry. Then he went sullenly
to sea.
The fishermen landed on either side of the narrow lagoon and started to
walk the net slowly up, gradually closing the space above into smaller
and smaller scope. In half an hour they had gone more than halfway, and
the frightened schools of fish began to grow more and more restless as
they saw the strangers approaching. Some of them tried the meshes of
the seine, but they were too small for any save the tiniest mullet to
go through, and they fled back again to the shallow water farther up.
The loggerhead was resting upon the surface watching the men. They had
not yet noticed him, but he had gone so long without harm from anyone
that he anticipated none. He was satisfied that his superiority to
all other creatures put him beyond the pale of becoming a victim to
anything.
Suddenly a fisherman noticed him and yelled to his companions across
the slue, pointing at the bony beak that showed above the surface. His
companions were too far away to hear what he said, but their sharp eyes
followed his signals and they soon noticed the turtle.
The net was drawing in closer and closer, the water was getting
shoaler, and the men were walking the lines ahead more rapidly. The
fish imprisoned beyond its scope now saw their danger plainly and
they tore the water into foam in their frantic efforts to escape. The
loggerhead saw them and watched them lazily, much amused at their
struggles. His contempt for them grew so supreme that when they rushed
past him in one of their frantic plunges he snapped viciously at a
lagging mullet and very nearly cut him in two. Then he sank slowly
down to the sandy bottom below, for the hurrying fish annoyed him.
The net was now nearly up to the end of the slue, and a giant leader
of the mullet school made a mighty dash for liberty. He tore down the
lagoon and rising with a sudden sweep upward, leaped high in the air
and plunged over the line of corks which floated the top of the trap.
He went free. Another, encouraged by his example, made the dash also
and went over. The rest, seeing the leaders leap to liberty, made a
dash in unison and with a mighty rush plunged at the floating line of
buoys. Hundreds went over in spite of the fishermen, who manned their
boats and rowed along the net, holding it aloft wherever they saw the
crowd coming. Some gave out at the jump and drove against the deadly
meshes, and others, finding the crowd too close for them, swerved at
the line and flowed past in a solid phalanx of shimmering silver to
swim back and make a new trial.
The cries of the men and the rush of the passing schools began to
make the loggerhead restless. There was something very extraordinary
taking place. He was angry at the miserable fish who were so useless
and helpless. His contempt finally became so great that he concluded
that he would go down to the other end of the slue where the sand shark
usually lay waiting for the little fish to come out in deep water. He
started to scull himself forward and had just made headway when he
suddenly brought up against the net.
The water was less than ten feet deep where he was, and he followed the
obstruction upward to the surface, thinking to find it end before he
came into view of the men. But the line of buoys held it well up and
his head popped out of the water before he realized that he could not
pass. A man in a boat made a vicious lunge at him with a boat-hook, but
he got out of the way and followed the net along trying to find a way
to get through.
The mullet and whiting were now leaping by scores over the corked line.
Their active life had made them fleet and strong. They had fought for
existence from the beginning, and the trap about them was but another
of the many obstacles they must surmount if they would endure. They
were terrified, but they acted quickly and sensibly, their fright
not causing them to overlook any possible means of escape. They were
getting clear in spite of the shouting men who were now hauling line
as fast as they could. Several large skates and a couple of flounders
who had lived up the slue were vainly trying to burrow under the
heavy leadline that swept the bottom. The loggerhead noticed them as
he passed, but they paid no heed to him. A troop of crabs were being
hustled along the bottom by the weighted line. They were snapping at
everything that came in their reach.
The loggerhead began to get anxious to go away. He made a savage lunge
at the meshes closing about him and he drove his head through a great
rent he made with his beak. His paddles, or flippers, however, caught
in the snare and he struggled wildly and with gigantic power to get
through. His tremendous struggles soon drew the corked line below the
surface and brought the fishermen hurrying in their boats to find out
what caused the trouble. They gazed down into the depths and soon made
out the giant shape struggling frantically. Seizing the lines of the
seine they quickly hauled the loggerhead to the surface, where one of
them grasped his hind paddle and held it long enough to get a bowline
around it. Then they rowed to the shore, towing him ignominiously
behind the craft, while the few remaining mullet, who were too small
and weak to make the leap for liberty, crowded swiftly through the gap
and headed for the open sea.
Even the skates now made for the opening in the trap. They rose to the
surface with difficulty, but managed to get clear. In less than five
minutes every living thing in the shape of a fish had escaped.
The fishermen landed their prize and tried to haul him out of the
water. The loggerhead objected to this, and he began to haul them
bodily into the sea. The water was riled and he appeared monstrous in
the foam. They could not tell what kind of creature he was, but it was
for them to get him ashore, and six of them hauled on the line while
two, wading in, began to pry at him with oars to turn him upon his
back. In a little while they had him rolled over and helpless. Then
they came close to examine their victim.
“I’d be willing to lose half a ton of fish fer a fine green turtle,”
said the leader of the men. “He’s a corker, an’ that’s a fact.”
“Looks to me like he’s nothin’ but one o’ them loggerheads,” said an
old fisherman; “if he is, he’s played it on us fine.”
They looked at the markings on his shell and pulled out his flippers.
Then the leader mopped his streaming face with a handkerchief. The old
fisherman looked up sheepishly and grinned.
“He aint wuth his weight in mud. Turn him lose an’ let him slide,” he
said.
A sailor rapped him over the head and spoke feelingly. Then they cut
the line adrift and went to gather in their torn net.
The loggerhead lay upon his back and waited. He was annoyed at the
disturbance. It was provoking to be turned over by a lot of fishermen.
The mullet had seen him hauled out by the flipper, and he grew angry at
the thought. He tried to twist round and get upon his belly, but could
not.
All day he lay in the hot sunshine and snapped viciously at the
sand-crabs who came to examine him. Then, as the tide raised and
floated him, he managed to get again upon his paddles. He was
disgusted. Far away down the lagoon a ripple on the water showed the
returning mullet. He gazed at them for a moment, then hauled himself
clear of the bottom. His ugly beak was stuck far out, and with steady
strokes he pointed it for the open sea. He passed the returning
fish, and they wondered at him. Then he went through the opening and
disappeared into the great ocean to the eastward.
[Illustration: The White FOLLOWER]
He was a little more than fourteen feet across the tips of his
outspread wings, more than two fathoms, and his white breast, full
and rounded, was as broad as that of the man who stood at the wheel
and watched him go soaring past. The very tips of his huge wings were
black as jet, showing in marked contrast to the unbroken whiteness of
the rest of his feathers, and the only other dark spot upon his snowy
form was his eye. This was as black and shiny as the lanyards in the
rigging. It was large and held a steady gaze, fearless yet curious, so
that when the man at the wheel looked up the bird tilted his head to
one side to get a better view of him. The giant beak, nearly a foot in
length and of heavy bone, had a strangely hooked end, which swelled
a little in size from the middle portion. It was a serviceable pair
of shears which could cut a five-pound fish in two at a bite. The two
webbed feet, as large again as those of a swan, were held close in
to the short tail feathers so as not to offer resistance to the air,
through which the bird went at the speed of an express train. Silent
and otherwise motionless, save for that turn of the head, the great
creature swept past. Not a movement of leg or pinion, not a feather
disturbed in that headlong rush. With the great wings stretched far out
and slightly bowed, he held his way and tore past the fast-running ship
as though she were at anchor, instead of plowing through the southern
ocean at the rate of ten knots an hour with the wind behind her. Then,
as she was left far astern, he tilted himself a little, and off into
the curve of a tremendous circle he swerved, swinging with the speed of
the wind over the rolling wave-tops until he had covered at least three
miles upon the arc and was heading swiftly back again to repeat the
maneuver.
All the time that large black and shining pair of eyes watched the
surface of the sea. Not a morsel of anything went overboard unobserved.
From a distance of a mile or more the huge bird would note the smallest
bits of food or grease which the cook would toss over the side when
cleaning his coppers for a new mess of salt junk. Sailing over the bits
of floating stuff he would hover a moment to see if they were really
worth tasting. If so, he would soar in smaller and smaller circles
until he would breast a sea. Then, dropping his legs and bracing his
feet to retard the slowing flight, he would sink into the water and
check himself with both feet and wings until his body finally rested
gracefully upon surface. Folding his pinions slowly and a little
stiffly, he would propel himself like a huge goose toward the floating
prize and make a pass at it with his beak. Salt-pork rind, gristle,
anything that had grease or taste to it, was chopped by the bony shears
and quickly bolted. It mattered little just what it was as long as it
had some grease or taste to it. His appetite was not squeamish.
When nothing remained he would slowly and stiffly again stretch out
those wings and face to windward. Then he would propel himself along
into the breeze until he rose upon a sea. A quick couple of strokes
with the pinions and a sudden push with both feet generally lifted the
great body clear of the water before it began to sink down the slope of
the succeeding sea. After that it was but a detail to rise higher and
higher into the clear air without perceptible motion save of rushing
ahead and circling in spiral curves, which no mathematician might
describe or define as a means of ascending.
The ship was something over six hundred miles off shore. She was
heading for the last corner of the world, Cape Horn, to turn it and
then go northward up the South Pacific. She would head up the middle of
the great ocean and at times she would not be within a thousand miles
of any land whatever.
For more than two weeks the albatross had followed in the wake, his
tireless pinions showing no signs of weakening by the continuous
flight. Steadily night and day he had followed, and the men aboard
had watched him with the awe all deep-water men feel for the giant
birds, which seem to be able to soar through space for a lifetime
without tiring. Sometimes when he came up astern he slackened his pace
by some method and remained for a short moment poised a few fathoms
above the man at the wheel. Then his steady look as he slanted his
head sideways made the man have a queer feeling, as though he were
almost in communication with a stranger from the realms of space. When
the captain happened on deck he paid considerable attention to the
follower, but he never thought to harm him. The Winchester, which he
often used to take snap-shots at blackfish, was always laid aside at
his approach.
The great bird noted this. He was not afraid of the rifle, for although
he saw the effects of the shot, he knew nothing of its power. The
man was a creature of the earth like himself, and he had no reason
to suspect him of harmful purposes simply on that account. He was
interested in him, and a not unfriendly feeling came within his breast.
In the latitude of the “roaring forties” the weather is uncertain.
Sometimes it blows high and sometimes low, which latter means it is
dead calm for a spell. Under these conditions a sailing ship naturally
comes to a sudden stop, and, with clewed-up courses, rolls and switches
away often for days without making more than a degree of southing.
It was during one of these calm spells that the captain began to
formulate a plan which would bring him in closer contact with the
great bird which still soared and circled about the ship. He rigged a
trolling line with a bit of wood for a float near the hook. Then he
baited it with a piece of salt beef and tossed it over the side.
The ship was barely moving, but still had headway enough to get away
from the bait. When it was fifty fathoms astern the captain held the
line and waited.
The albatross soon sighted the piece of beef and circled slowly toward
it. Then as it floated in clear view he settled upon the surface of the
sea and paddled up to it and gave it a chop. He cut away half the beef,
but missed the hook, and the captain’s jerk upon the line merely pulled
it from him. He made another grab, and as he did so the line tautened
and the barb of the hook caught under his beak.
Hand over hand the captain hauled him in. He spread forth his wings and
backed water hard with his feet, but the seaman kept a steady strain
upon the line and prevented the hook from slipping clear. Soon he was
directly under the ship’s counter, and as she squatted down into the
hollow of a swell the captain quickly hauled the bird over the rail to
the deck.
Inside the poop-rail it was impossible for the albatross to get headway
enough to rise into the air, the wind was so unfavorable in the
shelter. While he might waddle about upon the white planks it was as
impossible for him to get away as though he had been chained by the
leg. It was most provoking to be in such an absurd position. The man at
the wheel grinned at him, and the mate came up to take a better look
at close quarters. He stretched forth his wings and tried to rise by a
series of powerful strokes, but it was in vain. He only managed to go
plunging into the rail before he got his feet clear of the planks. This
made him angry and he snapped at the mate, making a savage chop with
his great beak, which came together with a loud clap. But the seaman
jumped aside, and the captain admonished him to keep away.
Gradually the feeling of being upon a floating thing with other
creatures seemed less strange. It was remarkable how different the
ship was now that he was on board it from what it appeared while he
was a few fathoms in the air. Yet he had followed it so long that he
had become accustomed to it, and the unpleasant sensation of becoming
suddenly a prisoner aboard gave place to that of curiosity. The captain
brought some choice fat and ordered the steward to keep the slush from
the coppers as clean as possible and give the stranger as much as he
wished. After eating several pounds he lost for the time all desire to
get away and waddled about the quarter-deck perfectly satisfied with
the sudden change in his condition.
The ship’s dog rushed up and made a savage attack, and for a few
minutes the great bird was frightened, for the noise was distracting
and a sudden bite gave him pain. Then the captain dragged the animal
away and gave the newcomer a choice piece of salt pork to make up for
the lack of courtesy shown by the dog.
There was much of the dog’s spirit aboard the ship, although it was
not manifest to the albatross. Among the men forward were several
who had much the same feeling for their fellows. Under the cover of
bluff and honest exteriors they concealed dispositions like that of
the dog. They were a type of what is known as “sea lawyer,” and were
always dwelling upon the grievances of sailors and the rascality of
mates and masters. Close and intelligent observers would have noticed
at once that the faults their leader saw in others were the ones rising
to the surface in himself and which he was trying to conceal. He was
saturnine, and his ugly little eyes held an unpleasant look every time
he came in the vicinity of either the mate or captain. The second
officer was in the other watch and therefore not often about to give
him orders.
As the vessel gradually made her way southward and the hardships became
more trying with the colder weather, the feeling aboard among the men
who listened to the grumbler became more sinister. The captain was not
such a man as to let things go unnoticed, but as long as there was no
direct disobedience of orders he took no action and let the mate warm
up the discontented men with extra work, for it is well known that
hard work will do more for an ugly crew than any medicine.
The captain spent much time on deck and made a pet of the bird he
had captured. He was a generous man and lonesome among the rough
fellows who made up the crew, for his position forbade any intercourse
whatever with anyone except his first officer. Even this seaman, able
and intelligent as he was, could not be made more of than a slight
acquaintance. Such is the rule aboard deep-water ships, for discipline
must be enforced if safety is to be considered.
During many lonely hours the master tried to reconcile the dog to the
newcomer. The old wolf spirit bred through thousands of generations
of the land animal was not easy to pacify. It was the old spirit of
suspicion for strangers based upon the experience of hundreds of
ancestors, who had perhaps trusted not wisely but too well in the
days when all living things were at war with each other and only the
strongest and most cunning might survive. It was as evident in the
dog as in the men of the forecastle, and the master studied carefully
and comprehensively to subdue it, or at least pacify it to an extent
that strife might be averted. Kindness and unselfishness were the two
antidotes he would employ.
The great bird was not slow to notice his friendship. After a day or
two he was on the lookout for the master, who appeared regularly to
take his morning observation for longitude, and he walked laboriously
up to him in spite of the dog’s yelping. There was something in the
man’s behavior that made him instinctively his friend. Finally even
the dog’s suspicions were allayed, and instead of seizing the bird’s
feathers in the rear to jerk them and then dodge the snap of the beak,
he met the bird face to face and refrained from either a bite or bark.
The two became reconciled.
During several days the albatross waddled about the quarter-deck and
was fed, until the captain, fearing that he would grow so fat he would
be unable to fly, finally took him in his arms one day and placed him
upon the rail. Then he tied a bit of fancy red cord about his leg so
that he might distinguish him from other birds that would follow in
the ship’s wake. The great bird had long ago learned to eat from the
man’s hand and took care not to chop too close to the fingers with
his powerful beak. The master would stroke the beautiful white head
and smooth the snowy feathers until the petting became a thing looked
forward to. It was a smooth day in the latitude of the Falklands when
he determined to set the captive free, and the dark water seemed
less attractive than usual under the gloom of the overcast sky. The
lonely cry of a stray penguin broke now and again upon the ears of the
listening seaman and had a depressing effect.
With a last caress he gave the pet a gentle push to start him. The
great black eyes looked hard at the sailor, and then, with the giant
wings outstretched, he swung off in a graceful swoop, curving upward
as the falling body nearly touched the sea. He was gone.