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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Do you think we are going to cast the dice again, and give an officer of the Sea-mew a chance of replacing an officer of the Wanderer? There is a vacancy in our party, not in yours; and we claim the right of filling it as we please. I volunteer, and my captain backs me. Whose authority is to keep me here after that?" "Gently, Wardour," said Captain Helding.
And now this prize and more thou hast won without battle; for I swear by the Treasure of the Sea, and by the bones of the great Sea-mew yonder, that I will serve thee not year-long but life-long, and that I will help thee in thy quest for thy beloved. What sayest thou?" Hallblithe stood speechless a moment, looking past the Puny Fox, rather than at him.
Although not a fast sailer she was an excellent sea-boat, and danced on the billows like a sea-mew. The squall, however, was not over. Before the topsails had been set many minutes it burst on them again with redoubled fury, and the main-topsail was instantly blown into ribbons.
Away in the distance a huge mass of rock stood out to view, its rugged lines transfigured into ethereal loveliness by a misty veil of tender rose pink, a hue curiously suggestive of some other and smaller sun that might have just set. Absolute silence prevailed. Not even the cry of a sea-mew or kittiwake broke the almost deathlike stillness, no breath of wind stirred a ripple on the glassy water.
The men left the hut. The officers entered the inner apartment for a last conference with the bed-ridden captain of the Sea-mew. Wardour and Crayford were left together, alone. Crayford touched his friend on the shoulder to rouse him. Wardour looked up, impatiently, with a frown. "I was just asleep," he said. "Why do you wake me?" "Look round you, Richard. We are alone." "Well and what of that?"
If your virtue cries out, is it not because it feels the approach of death? O wretch! those far off voices that you hear groaning in your heart, do you think they are sobs? They are, perhaps, only the cry of the sea-mew, that funereal bird of the tempest, whose presence portends shipwreck. Who has ever told the story of the childhood of those who have died stained with human blood?
A sea-mew passed close to her in its flight. "That was a bird!" said she. "Is there no one here beside ourselves?" "No; no one at all," answered Otto, carelessly. "Is no one in the hut, no one behind the sand-hills?" again asked the grandmother.
There was something awful in the solemn stillness that reigned around them; and with something like awe did it inspire them. It was not unbroken by sounds; but these were of a character to sadden rather than cheer them, for they were sounds to be heard only in the wilderness of the great deep, such as the half-screaming laugh of the sea-mew, and the wild whistle of the boatswain-bird.
It is one of the many keys of the West Indies. Here, in old buccaneering days, the pirates landed and careened their ships." "How did they do that?" she asked, fascinated. "I am not sure," I answered. "I think with white-wash. At any rate, they gave them a good careening. But since then these solitudes are only the home of the sea-gull, the sea-mew, and the albatross." The girl shuddered.
Philologically speaking, we should all be at sea, drifting, like a set of deaf-mutes, on a wide and inaudible ocean all inarticulate, tongue-tied, voiceless with only the screeching of the sea-mew, or some other sepulchral bird of the night, to greet us as in wide-mouthed derision of our speechlessness and folly.
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