Schools of porpoises played about the hull of the ship, and clouds of sea-birds at times wheeled about the topmasts, or followed in the ship's wake watching for refuse from the cook's department. Occasionally the head of a large, deep-water turtle would appear for a moment above the surface, twisting its awkward neck to watch the course of the steamer, while shoreward the mottled surface of the gently undulating waves betrayed the presence of myriads of small fish, over which hovered predatory birds of the gull tribe. Now and again one would swoop swiftly downward to secure a victim to its appetite. Few albatrosses were seen after leaving the Pacific mouth of the strait. They are lovers of the stormy Antarctic region, with the tempestuous atmosphere of which their great power of wing enables them to cope successfully. The author has seen one of these birds off the southern coast of New Zealand which spread eleven feet from tip to tip of its extended wings. It was caught with a floating bait by one of the seamen and drawn on board ship, where it was measured, but not until a long contest of strength had taken place between men and bird. The albatross was slightly wounded in the mouth and throat by the process of catching him with a baited hook. But they are hardy creatures, and unless injured in some vital part pay little heed to a small wound. After this bird had been examined, it was liberated, and resumed its graceful flight about the ship as though nothing unusual had happened.
An invalid girl of Spanish birth, who was perhaps sixteen years of age, very tenderly cared for by her mother, was propped up daily in a reclining seat upon deck, where she might find amusement in watching the sea and distant shore, while inhaling the saline tonic of the atmosphere. Poor child, how her large, dark eyes, pallid lips, and painful respiration appealed to one's sympathy! It required no professional knowledge to divine her approaching fate. She was really in the last stages of consumption, and was on her way to a popular sanitarium near the coast, hoping against reason that the change might prove restorative and of radical benefit. It was pleasant to observe how promptly every one on board strove to add to her comfort by simple attentions and services, and how the choicest bits from the table were secured to tempt her capricious appetite. The grateful mother's eyes were often suffused with tears, carefully hidden from the gentle invalid. Her maternal heart was too full for the utterance even of thanks.
"Ah," said she to us in a low tone of voice, "she is the last of my three children, two boys and this girl. The two boys faded away just like this. Do you think there is any hope for her, señor?" "Why not, señora? We should never cease to hope. The land breeze and the springs where you are going may do wonders."
Heaven forgive us. The child's fate was only too plainly to be read in her attenuated form, and the dull action of her almost congested lungs.
One day a small, weary sea-bird, newly out of its nest, flew on board our ship quite exhausted, and being easily secured, was given to the young girl to pet. It soon became quite at home in her lap, eating small bread crumbs and little bits of meat from her fingers. Confidence being thus established between them, the little half-fledged creature would not willingly leave its new-found benefactress. It seemed to be a providential occurrence, affording considerable diversion to the sick one. For a while, at least, she was aroused from the listlessness which is so very significant in consumption, and her whole heart went out to the confiding little waif. It was a pretty sight to see the bird nestle contentedly close to her bosom, the pale-faced girl scarcely less fragile than the little feathered stranger she had adopted. No one thought that Death was hovering so very near, yet the third night after the bird flew on board the young girl lay in her shroud, with an ivory crucifix, typical of the Romish faith, in one hand, and the other resting upon the inanimate bird she had befriended, which had also breathed its last.
Attempted consolation to a freshly bleeding heart is almost always premature, and there are few, very few, human beings competent to offer it effectually under the best circumstances. The sad-eyed mother listened to a few well-meant words of this character, but slowly shook her head and made no reply. Time only could assuage the keenness of her sorrow. By and by she spoke, with her eyes still resting upon that pale, dead face, where nothing but a wonderful peace and serenity were now expressed.
"Have birds souls, do you think?" she asked, in a low, trembling voice.
"Possibly," was the reply; "but why do you ask?" "Because," she continued, speaking very slowly, "that tiny creature and my darling died almost at the same moment, and if so, her spirit would have company on its way to the good God."
The unconscious poetry of the thought, so quietly expressed by the sorrowing mother, as she sat beside the corpse with folded hands and burning eyes, which could not find the relief of tears, was very touching.
The motor of the big ship throbbed on, the routine of duty continued unchanged, passengers ate, drank, and were merry, the sea-birds wheeled about us uttering their sharp contentious cries, and we pressed forward through the opposing wind and tide, as though nothing had happened. Only a mother's loving heart was broken. Only a soul gone to its God. Surely such sweet innocence must be welcome in heaven. But ah! the great mystery of it all!