We made a singular picture: the hovering and diving birds; the bodies of the dead discolouring the rice with blood; the scuppers vomiting breadstuff; the men, frenzied by the gold hunt, toiling, slaying, and shouting aloud: over all, the lofty intricacy of rigging and the radiant heaven of the Pacific.

Every man there toiled in the immediate hope of fifty dollars; and I, of fifty thousand.

Small wonder if we waded callously in blood and food.
It was perhaps about ten in the forenoon when the scene was interrupted.
Nares, who had just ripped open a fresh mat, drew forth, and slung at his feet, among the rice, a papered tin box.
"How's that ?" he shouted.
A cry broke from all hands: the next moment, forgetting their own disappointment, in that contagious sentiment of success, they gave three cheers that scared the sea-birds; and the next, they had crowded round the captain, and were jostling together and groping with emulous hands in the new-opened mat.

Box after box rewarded them, six in all; wrapped, as I have said, in a paper envelope, and the paper printed on, in Chinese characters.
Nares turned to me and shook my hand.

"I began to think we should never see this day," said he.