Then hope and confidence would rise again as our boat rose to a wave and tossed aside the crest in a sparkling shower like the play of prismatic colours at the foot of a waterfall.

My double-barrelled gun and some cartridges had been stowed aboard the boat as an emergency precaution against a shortage of food, but we were not disposed to destroy our little neighbours, the Cape pigeons, even for the sake of fresh meat.

We might have shot an albatross, but the wandering king of the ocean aroused in us something of the feeling that inspired, too late, the Ancient Mariner.

So the gun remained among the stores and sleeping- bags in the narrow quarters beneath our leaking deck, and the birds followed us unmolested.
The eighth, ninth, and tenth days of the voyage had few features worthy of special note.

The wind blew hard during those days, and the strain of navigating the boat was unceasing, but always we made some advance towards our goal.