elieve that
there could be any one so cruel as to long for the decapitation of the
luckless Pedro; yet the sailors pray every minute, selfish fellows, that
the miserable fowl may be brought to his end. They say the captain will
never point the ship for the land so long as he has in anticipation a mess
of fresh meat. This unhappy bird can alone furnish it; and when he is once
devoured, the captain will come to his senses. I wish thee no harm, Peter;
but as thou art doomed, sooner or later, to meet the fate of all thy race;
and if putting a period to thy existence is to be the signal for our
deliverance, why--truth to speak--I wish thy throat cut this very moment;
for, oh! how I wish to see the living earth again! The old ship herself
longs to look out upon the land from her hawseholes once more, as Jack
Lewis said right the other day when the captain found fault with his
steering.

"Why, d'ye see, Captain Vangs," says bold Jack, "I'm as good a helmsman as
ever put hand to spoke; but none of us can steer the old lady now. We
can't keep her full and bye, sir: watch her ever so close, she will fall
off; and then, sir, when I put the helm down so gently and try like to
coax her to the work, she won't take it kindly, but will fall round off
again; and it's all because she knows the land is under the lee, sir, and
she won't go any more to windward." Ay, and why should she, Jack? didn't
every one of her stout timbers grow on shore, and hasn't she sensibilities
as well as we?

Poor old ship! Her very looks denote her desires: how deplorable she
appears! The paint on her sides, burnt up by the scorching sun, is puffed
out and cracked. See the weeds she trails along with her, and what an
unsightly bunch of these horrid barnacles has formed about her
stern-piece; and every time she rises on a sea, she shows her copper torn
away or hanging in jagged strips.

Poor old ship! I say again: for six months she has been rolling and
pitching about, never for one moment at rest. But courage, old lass, I
hope to see thee soon within a biscuit's toss of the merry land, riding
snugly at anchor in some green cove, and sheltered from the boisterous
winds.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Hurrah, my lads! It's a settled thing; next week we shape our course to
the Marquesas!" The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish things
does the very name spirit up! Lovely houris--cannibal banquets--groves of
cocoa-nuts--coral ree