“But you said you wished the brig had gone down.”
And, seizing the pretext, he began to tell her of the first thing that came into his head; how he had sailed some thousands of miles from the Cape to the Mauritius, explaining the mysteries of great circle sailing, and why they had sailed due south, though the Mauritius was in the north-west, in order that they might catch the trade winds. Before reaching these there were days when the sailors did little else but shift the sails, trying to catch every breeze that fluttered about them, tacking all the while, with nothing to distract them but the monotonous albatross. The birds would come up the seas, venturing within a few yards of the vessel, and float away again, becoming mere specks on the horizon. Again the specks would begin to grow la
