The man, with a civil flourish of his hand to his brow, left the cabin.
'There's no fool like Jack fool,' said Captain Cliffe.
I confess, however, that when I reckoned up to myself the number of people on board and made No. 13, I felt a little uneasy. I said nothing to the captain, but the thing weighed upon me. It was perfectly natural that at such a time I should be superstitious; certainly a good omen would have heartened me: why, then, should not so unlucky a circumstance as that of thirteen forming the number of us in the brig prove depressing? I was so weak in this way that I had serious thoughts of ordering Cliffe to tranship one of the men at the first chance that offered. Also, the boatswain Bodkin's description of the island, his talk of the cliffs, of ice-splitting and thundering down in blocks, worried me by exciting new apprehensions. I was sorry I had sent for the man. I had come from the deck to my dinner in tolerably good spirits, and when I returned on deck I felt as melancholy as ever I had been in my gloomiest hour aboard the 'Cambrian.'
The mood lasted for the remainder of the day, so that, spite of the noble sailing breeze, this, my first start in search of Marie, seemed as inauspicious as though the scheme had failed in the first breath of it. But after a long chat with Cliffe in the evening I grew cheerfuller. The sun was sinking in splendour: the dark blue sea ran in frothing lines; the brig was sailing swiftly, heeling down and smoking onwards as though, like something living, she blew the breath of life in steam from the nostrils of her hawsepipes as she fled. Every hour of such progress shortened the term of expectation; all might yet be well; I could not but reflect that, until the worst was known, the best might most rationally be hoped for. I had come to Cape Town thinking to find my sweetheart dead; it was not she that lay there. Though we should board the wreck and find nobody in her, still I should have a right to believe that the three had been rescued, and perhaps at that very time were at home in safety.
Thus I reasoned with myself after my talk with Cliffe in the evening and was somewhat easier at heart, which indeed in this whistling evening, merry with progress, spacious with the splendour of the setting sun, and the distance of the eastern seaboard faintly flushed, might have been at rest but for the gloom of the silly superstition of thirteen!
About this time, a little before it fell dark, whilst looking towards the forecastle where most of the crew were smoking and talking, I saw a man come out of the hatch, hugging something to his breast. The sailors jumped up and pressed around him. Hands were outstretched to what the fellow held, and I heard some laughter. Cliffe was below. The mate Bland was walking near me abreast of the skylight. He bawled out:
'What have you there, my lads?'
On which the boatswain Bodkin, snatching the object from the hold of the man, held it high, shouting:
'Here's good luck to the brig "Albatross;" and now there's fourteen all told.'