THE SKIPPER AND THE GULLS 147 



wounds by attacking us. Since the sea was rising and the ship 

 drifting away, we had no time to kill him, so I offered him my 

 foot to bite ; he seized it and held so firmly as to pain me through 

 the thick leather until we came aboard. 



At this stage of our expedition, having been for some time 

 without fresh meat, we learned to eat sea-fowl ; and we found 

 the sea-pigeon excellent eating. Gulls of the several kinds were 

 very palatable, if the precaution was taken to parboil them be- 

 fore they went into the stew-pot. Our skipper had the usual 

 horror of the real sailors for eating sea-fowl ; the sight of us when 

 thus engaged would drive him from the table to pace the deck, 

 where he relieved his mind by a volcanic burst of his compli- 

 cated and marvellous profanity before he came to the cabin 

 again. Though we admired the fellow, he was indeed a noble 

 man, after the manner of youths on a lark we were given to 

 tormenting him as well as the cook. One act of meanness comes 

 back to me. After we had been out a month or so, the skipper, 

 who had with disgust disdained as rations gulls and the like, 

 was lucky enough to shoot two black ducks. Over them he 

 gloated, saying that he would eat them all himself, he was 

 capable of the feat, for his huge carcass had storage like a ship's 

 hold, while we should make our meal on gulls. As the cook- 

 ing went on he presided over the galley, as if he saw the possi- 

 bilities of substitution ; he even saw his private victual dished 

 up and put on the table before him. But we had, by threatening 

 the cook with " more wine" and other inflictions, compelled him 

 to make up our mess in a similar dish so that the two looked 

 alike. Then at the last moment we contrived that the skipper 

 should take a look on deck while the dishes were changed. He 

 ate the gulls (and we the ducks) with many remarks on their 

 sorry quality and much abuse of our dirty habit and its inevit- 

 able consequences in the way of bad weather and shipwreck. 

 When we were sure that good digestion had sufficiently attended 

 on appetite to make the success complete, we told the skipper 

 the game we had played on him in order to clear off the score 



