I was so confounded by the shock and the blow that for some moments I
sat goggling the object that lay as lead upon my knees like a fool. I
then threw it from me, and stood up. It fell where a slant of moonshine
lay clear upon the side of the top, and I perceived that it was a big
sea-bird, as large as a noddy, white as snow saving the margin of its
wings, which were of a velvet black. It had a long, curved beak, and I
gathered from the look of one of its pinions, which overlaid the body as
though broken, that its width of wing must have come proportionally very
near to that of the albatross. I could see by the moonshine that the
eyes were closing by the slow drawing down of a white skin. The
creature did not stir. I stood staring at it full five minutes, gripping
the topmast rigging to provide against its rolling me out of the top
should it rise suddenly and strike out with its wings, but there was no
stir of life in it. It was then that I caught sight of something which
seemed to glitter in the thick down upon its breast like a dewdrop on
thistledown. It was a little square case of white metal, apparently a
tobacco-box, secured to the bird’s neck. By this time the passengers had
come up from supper, and were dancing again on the poop. I could see
nothing for the awning, but the music was audible enough, and I could
also catch the sliding sounds of feet travelling over the hard planks,
and the gay laughter of hearts warmed by several toasts. The Jacks were
also at work forward. An occasional note of tipsy merriment, I would
think, rose up from that part of the ship; but there was no lack of
earnestness in the toe and heeling there; the slap of the sailors’ feet
upon the decks sounded like the clapping of hands; and I could just
catch a glimpse of the figure of the fiddler in the obscurity which
overlaid the booms quivering and swaying as he sawed, as though the
noise he made was driving him crazy.
I seized the big bird by the legs and found its weight by no means so
considerable as I should have supposed from the blow it dealt me. So,
tightly binding its webbed feet with my pocket-handkerchief, that they
might serve me as a handle, I dropped with this strange, dead
sea-messenger through the wide square of the lubber’s hole into the main
shrouds, and leisurely descended. The chief mate stood at the head of
the starboard poop ladder as I reached the rail.
“Hillo!” he called out, “good sport there, Mr. Catesby. What star have
you been shooting over pray? And what _is_ it may I ask? A _turkey_?”
A shout of this sort was enough to bring everybody running to look. The
music ceased, the dancing abruptly stopped. In a moment I was surrounded
by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen shoving and exclaiming as they
gathered about the skylight upon which I had laid the big sea-fowl.
“What is it, Mr. Catesby? My stars! a handsome bird surely,” exclaimed
Captain Bow.
“Oh, Captain,” cried a young lady, “is the beautiful creature dead
really?”
“See!” shouted a military man, “the creature’s breast is decorated with
a crucifix. No, damme, it’s a trick of the light. What is it, though?”
“A silver pouncebox, I declare,” exclaimed a tall, stout lady, with a
knowing nod of the feather in her head.
“A sailor’s nickel tobacco-box more like, ma’am,” observed the mate,
“with some castaway’s writing inside, or that bird’s a crocodile.”
“Let’s have the story of the thing, Mr. Catesby,” said the captain.
I briefly stated that I had ascended to the maintop to breathe the cool
air up there and that whilst I was nodding the bird had dashed against
me and fallen dead across my knees.
“Oh, how dreadful!” “Oh, how interesting!” “Oh, I wonder the fright
didn’t make you faint, Mr. Catesby!” and so on, and so on from the young
ladies.
“Shall I cast the seizing of the box adrift, sir?” said the mate.
“Ay,” responded the captain.
The officer with his knife severed the laniard of sennit and made to
lift the lid of the box. But this proved a long job, inexpressibly
vexatious to the thirsty expectations of the onlookers, owing to the lid
fitting as to resist, as though soldered, the blade of the knife. When
opened at last, there was disclosed, sure enough, inside, a piece of
paper folded, apparently a leaf from a logbook.
“Bring a lantern, some one,” roared the mate.
Some one held a light close to the officer, who exclaimed, after opening
the sheet and gazing at it a little, “Any lady or gentleman here
understand Spanish?”
“I do,” exclaimed the handsome young “griffin” who had sat next to the
colonel’s lady at table.
“Will you kindly translate this then?” said the mate, handing him the
letter.
“It’s French,” said the young fellow; “no matter; I can read French.”