horrible stain upon the blue surface beneath which he shot away. “Pity! His mates will eat him now, an’ porpoise liver is as good as calf’s any day,” said the regretful Nimrod in the chains. “Ought to ha’ looked a bit livelier with that there line, mate. But there! ought stands for ‘nothing,’ don’t it?”
One beautiful evening we spoke another of our own fleet. We were anchored in a bay beneath mountains covered with Bush, which in one place was on fire, and sent a ruddy, pulsing glow across the sky and deep into the water. Opposite, in perfect contrast, hung the full moon, peaceful, and pure, and pale; and I was lying on the “house” roof, lulled into delicious dreaminess by the humming of the surf ashore, the wash of the water along the vessel’s side, and the satisfying loveliness all round, when—gradually—I became aware of an approaching, mystical presence; felt, rather than saw, a ghostly glimmer come gliding alongside; and there, by us, all of a sudden, in full moonlight, lay the white-winged Rongomai!
Her skipper came aboard the Tikirau and stood talking awhile on the deck; and something started him telling, in that tranquilly romantic place, a story of quite another side of the sea-life. It was a story that began with a wreck. The vessel had been thrown on her beam ends, the decks were a-wash, and the speaker, with only one other of the crew, found himself in the main-rigging, eye to eye with Death. “The chap with me was a very smart young fellow—hard case, regular pirate, an’, says he, ‘Watch below must ha’ been drowned, an’ the rest o’ watch on deck looks to be well overboard. What say,’ says he, ‘if we was to try an’ save her
