, badly
off as you are just now, there is another, as you see, whose fate is
worse; and who shall say that in other places, where your eye cannot
reach, there are not others yet so very, very miserable, that they would
willingly, oh! how willingly! change places with you, or with that poor
fluttering bird?"

This talk with myself quieted me for a time, and I felt a certain joy
when I saw the bird slowly descend, and having spied my uncomfortable
boat, perch heavily on the other end of it. He did not do so until he had
looked at me with evident alarm; and, worn out as he was, and his heart
beating as though it would burst through his yellow coat, he still kept
his eyes fixed upon me, ready to take wing and resume his journey,
wherever he might be going, at the least motion I should make.

Some time passed over in this way; myself in the middle, and Dicky at the
end of the beam. We did not say a word to each other; for, as I spoke no
other language but my own, and he seemed about as clever as myself, we
merely talked with our eyes.

A thought now came into my head. My thirst returned, and I felt very
hungry. What if I should suddenly dart on little Dicky, and make a meal
of him? I did not consider at the instant that, by so doing, I should be
acting a very base part, for Dicky had placed confidence in me; and
killing him for trusting to my honour, and eating him because he was poor
and unfortunate, would be neither a good return nor a kind action.
Luckily for Dicky, and even for myself, although he was not able to speak
foreign languages, he could read my meaning in my eyes; for when I turned
them slowly towards him, just to see my distance, he took alarm, and rose
into the air with a swiftness which I envied. I am sorry to say my only
thought at first was the having lost my dinner: but as I watched him
through the air, flying on and on, until he diminished to a misty speck,
and then disappeared, my better feelings came back to me and said, "Oh,
Job! I would not have believed this of you!" "But," replied my empty
stomach, "I am so hungry; without food, I shall fall in, and Job will
die." "Let Job die," said my better self again, in a cold, firm tone;
"let Job rather die, than do what he would live to feel ashamed of."

As the day wore on, I began to think that death only could relieve me;
and the thought was very, very painful. Nothing before and around but the
salt waves--nothing above but the blue sky and hot sun--no