It used to be a great comfort to me,
and I think to those with me also, after we had seen the last of the
Golden Mary, to see the Golden Lucy, held up by the men in the Long-boat,
when the weather allowed it, as the best and brightest sight they had to
show. She looked, at the distance we saw her from, almost like a little
white bird in the air. To miss her for the first time, when the weather
lulled a little again, and we all looked out for our white bird and
looked in vain, was a sore disappointment. To see the men's heads bowed
down and the captain's hand pointing into the sea when we hailed the Long-
boat, a few days after, gave me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of
heartache to bear as ever I remember suffering in all my life. I only
mention these things to show that if I did give way a little at first,
under the dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without
having been a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or
another than often fall to one man's share.
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