l; and, the wind having slackened a little, a hook
was baited with a piece of salt pork, which the hungry bird seized.
As soon as he was drawn on board he flapped about more helpless than
anything I have ever seen, falling into everything he could fall
into, biting several of the crew. You know the sonnet in which
Baudelaire compares the bird on the wing to the poet with the Muse
beside him, and the albatross on deck to the poet in the
drawing-room. You remember the sonnet, how the sailors teased the bird
with their short black pipes."

"But the breast feathers?"

"We didn't kill the bird; I wouldn't allow him to be killed. We threw
him overboard, and down into the sea he went like a log."

Evelyn asked if he were drowned.

"Albatrosses don't drown. He swam for a time and fluttered, and at
last succeeded in getting on the wing. I was very glad to see him
float away, and was still more glad a few minutes afterwards, for
before the bird was out of sight a sign appeared in the heavens, and
I began to think of the story of 'The Ancient Mariner.' You know--"

"Yes, I know the story, how all his misfortunes arose from the
killing of an albatross. But what was the sign?"

"A dull yellow like a rainbow, only more pointed, and my skipper said
to me, 'Sir Owen, that is one of them hurricanes; if I knew which way
she was going I'd try to get out of the way as fast as I could, for
we shall be torn to pieces in a very few minutes.' I assure you it
was an anxious moment watching that red, yellow light in the sky; it
grew fainter, and eventually disappeared, and the skipper said, 'We
have just missed it.' A few days afterwards we came into the
Mauritius, and the first thing we saw was a great vessel in the
ports, her iron masts twisted and torn just like hairpins, Evelyn.
She had been caught in the tornado, a great three-masted vessel....
We should have gone down like an open boat."

"And after you left the Mauritius your destination was--"

"Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay Archipelago."

"But what were you seeking in the Malay Archipelago?"

"What does one ever seek? One seeks, no matter what; and, not being
able to see you, Evelyn, I thought I would try to see everything in
the world."

"But there is nothing to see in Borneo?"

"Well, you will laugh when I tell you, but it seemed to me that I'd
like to see the orang-outang in his native forests. I had been to
Greece, and I knew the Italian Renaissance--"

"And after so m