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 THE ANCIENT MARINER

I SIGN ON AS CABIN BOY

spotted tunny would leap several yards from the sea, to descend again with a mighty smack upon the waters. From afar, borne upon the gentle breeze, came the low grizzle of the sperm-whale as it herded its young, or the thud of the mighty sword-fish, as it drove home the deadly weapon with which Nature, knowing its own ends, has provided him; while, mellowed by even greater distance, the high-pitched yell of the land-cod and the shriek of its maddened prey, could now and again be heard. I was lazily reclining among the peak 39