172 THE WHALE AND 



The hovering Albatross. Painful Anxiety. 



the very spot where the poor fellow was last 

 seen. It was a curious circumstance, and only 

 served to heighten our horror, when we saw 

 the carnivorous bird set itself proudly over the 

 head of our companion ; and which also served 

 to remind us of the number of sharks that we 

 had so frequently seen of late, and of the hor- 

 rible propensities of which we could not dare 

 to think. 



By the time we had hoisted in the boat it was 

 quite dark ; the wind, too, had increased to half 

 a gale, with heavy squalls at times, so that we 

 were obliged to double reef our topsails. We 

 had lost one of our men who had sailed with us 

 from England, the bare thought of which, in 

 our circumstances, aroused a crowd of heart- 

 rending ideas. Our captain and second mate, 

 with ten of the crew, had disappeared, and were 

 by that time all lost or likely to be so, in the 

 stormy night which had set in : being, too, sev- 

 eral hundred miles away from land. We, how- 

 ever, kept beating the ship to windward con- 

 stantly, carrying all the sail she could bear, 

 making " short boards," or putting about every 

 twenty minutes. We had also, since night fell, 

 continued to burn lights, and we had likewise 



