mess of fresh meat. This unhappy bird can alone furnish it; and
when he is once devoured, the captain will come to his senses. I
wish thee no harm, Pedro; but as thou art doomed, sooner or
later, to meet the fate of all thy race; and if putting a period
to thy existence is to be the signal for our deliverance,
why--truth to speak--I wish thy throat cut this very moment; for,
oh! how I wish to see the living earth again! The old ship
herself longs to look out upon the land from her hawse-holes once
more, and Jack Lewis said right the other day when the captain
found fault with his steering.

'Why d'ye see, Captain Vangs,' says bold Jack, 'I'm as good a
helmsman as ever put hand to spoke; but none of us can steer the
old lady now. We can't keep her full and bye, sir; watch her
ever so close, she will fall off and then, sir, when I put the
helm down so gently, and try like to coax her to the work, she
won't take it kindly, but will fall round off again; and it's all
because she knows the land is under the lee, sir, and she won't
go any more to windward.' Aye, and why should she, Jack? didn't
every one of her stout timbers grow on shore, and hasn't she
sensibilities; as well as we?

Poor old ship! Her very looks denote her desires! how
deplorably she appears! The paint on her sides, burnt up by the
scorching sun, is puffed out and cracked. See the weeds she
trails along with her, and what an unsightly bunch of those
horrid barnacles has formed about her stern-piece; and every time
she rises on a sea, she shows her copper torn away, or hanging in
jagged strips.