rable sea-birds.

The birds themselves gyrated and screamed meanwhile among the rigging;
and when we looked into the galley, their outrush drove us back.
Savage-looking fowl they were, savagely beaked, and some of the black
ones great as eagles. Half-buried in the slush, we were aware of a
litter of kegs in the waist; and these, on being somewhat cleaned,
proved to be water-beakers and quarter-casks of mess beef with some
colonial brand, doubtless collected there before the _Tempest_ hove in
sight, and while Trent and his men had no better expectation than to
strike for Honolulu in the boats. Nothing else was notable on deck, save
where the loose topsail had played some havoc with the rigging, and
there hung, and swayed, and sang in the declining wind, a raffle of
intorted cordage.

With a shyness that was almost awe, Nares and I descended the companion.
The stair turned upon itself and landed us just forward of a thwart-ship
bulkhead that cut the poop in two. The fore part formed a kind of
miscellaneous store-room, with a double-bunked division for the cook (as
Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst,
the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern;
on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for the mate;
and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-closet. Into these we
did but glance, the main cabin holding us. It was dark, for the
sea-birds had obscured the skylight with their droppings; it smelt rank
and fusty: and it was beset with a loud swarm of flies that beat
continually in our faces. Supposing them close attendants upon man and
his broken meat, I marvelled how they had found their way to Midway Reef;
it was sure at least some vessel must have brought them, and that long
ago, for they had multiplied exceedingly. Part of the floor was strewn
with a confusion of clothes, books, nautical instruments, odds and ends
of finery, and such trash as might be expected from the turning out of
several seamen's chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a long cruise.
It was strange in that dim cabin, quivering with the near thunder of the
breakers and pierced with the screaming of the fowls, to turn over so
many things that other men had coveted, and prized, and worn on their
warm bodies--frayed old underclothing, pyjamas of strange design, duck
suits in every stage of rustiness, oil-skins, pilot coats, embroidered
shirts, jackets of Ponjee sil