No apparition
could have affected us more than the sight of this floating beauty, so
like the _Aquidneck_, gliding swiftly and quietly by, from her mission
to some foreign land--she, too, was homeward bound!
This incident of the _Aquidneck's_ ghost, as it appeared to us, passing
at midnight on the sea, left a pang of lonesomeness for a while.
But a carrier dove came next day, and perched upon the mast, as if to
tell that we had yet a friend! Welcome harbinger of good! you bring us
thoughts of angels.
The lovely visitor remained with us two days, off and on, but left for
good on the third, when we reached away from Avis Island, to which,
maybe, it was bound. Coming as it did from the east, and flying west
toward the island when it left, bore out the idea of the lay of sweet
singer Kingsley's "Last Buccaneer."
If I might but be a sea dove, I'd fly across the main
To the pleasant Isle of Avis, to look at it once again.
The old Buccaneer, it may have been, but we regarded it as the little
bird, which most likely it was, that sits up aloft to look out for poor
"Jack."[6]
A moth, blown to our boat on the ocean, found shelter and a welcome
there.
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