He stood there for a moment holding on to a portion of the slimy rigging which still remained, for indeed a wondrous sight lay before him on the deck below.
The whole of it was covered with the nests of sea-birds, built chiefly with dried seaweed, and lined with rags. These rags told a tale—they were undoubtedly the tattered remains of dead men’s clothes, and must have been torn from the bodies of sailors that lay dead in derelicts not so ancient as this. Some of the rags were red, others blue.
But every nest was filled with beautiful eggs. Blue or green they were, and prettily streaked and blotched with black.
Save the birds—and they were in myriads, their screaming and noise being deafening—there was no living creature on board. Shells of molluscs, bivalves, and small crabs, however, lay about plentifully, and even the bones of fishes, nor was the odour that rose from the deck at all captivating to the nasal organs.
It is always sad, and at most times sinful, to harry or rob the nests of birds, but in this case Barclay considered it a case of necessity, so with but few scruples of conscience the boat was loaded with eggs.
There were one or two skeletons on the deck, the green bones of which told a sad tale of suffering. Inside the ribs birds had built their nests. Down below there was absolutely nothing to give a clue to the name of the ship or to elucidate the mystery. When told of this, Antonio believed that she had been hurriedly deserted at sea, and afterwards had floated into the Sargasso Sea; that the men who had died on board had probably been sick, and thus were left behind to die in lonesome misery.
The eggs were put in salt, and formed an excellent and wholesome addition to the now waning contents of the larder.
. . . . . .
When morning at length broke red across the brown sea, it was found that something strange had happened during the night, for there were no signs of the derelict, and all the birds had dispersed.
“No doubt,” said Antonio to Barclay, “the shaking of the ship by your men trampling about as they gathered the eggs had opened an old leak, kept shut before, perhaps, by weeds, and a rotten plank or two. She would then rapidly go down and sink.”