advantage of his enemy's afternoon _siesta_, the Dutchman had now
managed to sneak by him, and had gone out on the bowsprit to fish. When
the animal waked and saw the other creature enjoying himself he
straddled his chain, leveled his horns, got his hind feet against the
mast and laid a course for the offender. The chain was strong, the mast
firm, and the ship, as Byron says, "walked the water like a thing of
course."

After that we kept the Dutchman right where he was, night and day, the
old _Camel_ making better speed than she had ever done in the most
favorable gale. We held due south.

We had now been a long time without sufficient food, particularly meat.
We could spare neither the bullock nor the Dutchman; and the ship's
carpenter, that traditional first aid to the famished, was a mere bag of
bones. The fish would neither bite nor be bitten. Most of the
running-tackle of the ship had been used for macaroni soup; all the
leather work, our shoes included, had been devoured in omelettes; with
oakum and tar we had made fairly supportable salad. After a brief
experimental career as tripe the sails had departed this life forever.
Only two courses remained from which to choose; we could eat one
another, as is the etiquette of the sea, or partake of Captain
Abersouth's novels. Dreadful alternative!--but a choice. And it is
seldom, I think, that starving sailormen are offered a shipload of the
best popular authors ready-roasted by the critics.

We ate that fiction. The works that the captain had thrown aside lasted
six months, for most of them were by the best-selling authors and were
pretty tough. After they were gone--of course some had to be given to
the bullock and the Dutchman--we stood by the captain, taking the other