author - "Maturin Murray Ballou"
line, "seein' hestarted so arly on the sea he can't tell when he wasn't there himself."
"How was that matter, Bill?" asked one of his messmates. "They say youhave kept the captain's reckoning, man and boy, these fifteen years."
"That have I, and never a truer heart floated than the man you seeyonder leaning over the rail on the quarterdeck, where he belongs,"answered Bill Marline.
"How did you first fall in with him, Bill?--Tell us that," said one ofthe crew.
"Well, do ye see, messmates, it must have been the matter of thirteenyears ago, there or thereabouts, but I can't exactly say, seeing's Inever have kept a log and can't write; but must have been about thatlength of time, when I was a foremast hand on board the 'Sea Lion,' asfine an Indiaman as you would wish to see. We were lying in theLiverpool docks, with sails bent and cargo stowed, under sailing orders,when one afternoon there strolled alongside a boy rather ragged anddirty, but with such eyes and such a countenance as would m
essel must necessarily pass over a distance of many leagues, far, far beyond the power of human sight. How marvelous, therefore, must be the instinct which guides them unerringly to resume our company with the earliest rays of the morning light. When, in the arid desert, the exhausted camel sinks at last in its tracks to die, and is finally left by the rest of the caravan, no other object is visible in the widespread expanse, even down to the very verge of the horizon. Scarcely is the poor creature unloaded, however, and left to perish upon the sand, before there will appear in the far-away sky a cloud of vultures, at first mere specks in the blue atmosphere, swooping with lightning speed towards the dying animal, whose bones they immediately strip with terrific voraciousness. One who has witnessed this scene can never forget it. The vultures strain and tear at the carcass, swallowing great pieces of hide and flesh, until at last, when they are completely gorged, they can only rise a few feet from the earth,
line, "seein' hestarted so arly on the sea he can't tell when he wasn't there himself."
"How was that matter, Bill?" asked one of his messmates. "They say youhave kept the captain's reckoning, man and boy, these fifteen years."
"That have I, and never a truer heart floated than the man you seeyonder leaning over the rail on the quarterdeck, where he belongs,"answered Bill Marline.
"How did you first fall in with him, Bill?--Tell us that," said one ofthe crew.
"Well, do ye see, messmates, it must have been the matter of thirteenyears ago, there or thereabouts, but I can't exactly say, seeing's Inever have kept a log and can't write; but must have been about thatlength of time, when I was a foremast hand on board the 'Sea Lion,' asfine an Indiaman as you would wish to see. We were lying in theLiverpool docks, with sails bent and cargo stowed, under sailing orders,when one afternoon there strolled alongside a boy rather ragged anddirty, but with such eyes and such a countenance as would m
essel must necessarily pass over a distance of many leagues, far, far beyond the power of human sight. How marvelous, therefore, must be the instinct which guides them unerringly to resume our company with the earliest rays of the morning light. When, in the arid desert, the exhausted camel sinks at last in its tracks to die, and is finally left by the rest of the caravan, no other object is visible in the widespread expanse, even down to the very verge of the horizon. Scarcely is the poor creature unloaded, however, and left to perish upon the sand, before there will appear in the far-away sky a cloud of vultures, at first mere specks in the blue atmosphere, swooping with lightning speed towards the dying animal, whose bones they immediately strip with terrific voraciousness. One who has witnessed this scene can never forget it. The vultures strain and tear at the carcass, swallowing great pieces of hide and flesh, until at last, when they are completely gorged, they can only rise a few feet from the earth,