“‘Then my brain began to reel, and I fell forward in the boat among my dead companions.
“‘A shock awoke me at last. Cold and shivering now, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Morning was breaking gloomy and grey over the sea, and some gulls were wheeling and screaming about in the air.
“‘Once again the shock, and the boat trembled from stem to stern, and some birds rose up out of the bows and floated slowly away. They had been gorging on the dead.
“‘The shocks to the boat were easily accounted for: the sea was alive with monster sharks.
“‘O God! men, it was a fearful sight. There was something appalling and horrible in the very way they gambolled around the boat. Their eyes told me one thing: they had come for the dead—and the living.
“‘I cannot tell you whether I really did lift the bodies of my late companions and throw them overboard. I would even now fain believe this was but a dream. If so, it was terribly real, the fighting, wrangling sharks in the sea, the birds wheeling and screaming above.
“‘My boat was picked up that day by some Icelandic fisherman; there was no one in it but myself, men, white in hair, white in beard, as you now behold me.’”
So ended the spectioneer’s story, and so ended that Christmas dinner in the Doldrums, but both Kenneth and Archie long, long after this used to speak about it amid other scenes and in other climes, and both agreed it was one of the pleasantest afternoons ever they had spent in life.
The two friends made many a voyage together in the Brilliant, and together came through no little adventure, and saw many a strange sight in many a strange sea. They came to love the vessel at last, for real sailors do love their ships. They loved her and called her the saucy Brilliant, and the dear old ship, and quite a host of other pet names.
“But alas! and alas?” said Kenneth to Archie one day, while they stood together on the quarter-deck, “we are not making our fortunes. We will never get rich at sea. And by-and-bye, you know, we’ll be getting fearfully old.”