"I
wasn't projectin' much about superstitions. No, ma'am! We had all we
could do--the two of us--handlin' the wheel with them old graybacks
huntin' us. Them old he waves hunt in droves mostly, and when one did
board us we couldn't scarce get clear of the wash of it before another
would rise right up over our rail and fill the waist, or mebbe sweep
ev'rything clean from starn to bowsprit.
"It was sundown (only we hadn't seen no sun in a week) when that
albatross was killed and hove overboard. At four bells of the mornin'
watch one o' them big waves come inboard. It washed everything that
wasn't lashed into the scuppers and took one of our smartest men
overboard with it. But there, floatin' in the wash it left behind, was
the dead albatross!"
"Oh, how terrible!" murmured Mrs. Conroth, watching Cap'n Amazon much
as a charmed bird is said to watch a snake.
"Yes, ma'am; tough to lose a shipmate like that, I agree. But that was
only the beginning. Cap'n Hicks pitched the thing overboard himself.
Couldn't ha' got one of the men, mebbe, to touch it.
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