The time when Yves used to like to descend from his crow's nest and come to visit me in my room was in the evening, especially after the assembly at evening quarters. He would come very quietly, without making in his bare feet any more noise than a cat. He would drink some fresh water straight out of a water-cooler which hung at my port-hole, and then set to work putting in order divers things which belonged to me; or, maybe, he would read some novel. There was one especially of George Sand's which enthralled him, "Le Marquis de Villemer." At the first reading I had surprised him on the point of tears, towards the end. Yves could sew very skilfully, as all good sailors can, and it was quaint to see him engaged in this work, given his size and aspect. During his evening visits he used to overhaul my uniform and do any repairs which he judged were beyond the skill of my servant to attend to properly. CHAPTER XIII We sailed steadily, fully rigged, towards the south. Now there were clouds of "draught-boards" and other sea-birds in attendance upon us. They followed us, wondering and confident, from morning until night, crying, throwing themselves about, flying in erratic curves--as if in welcome to us, another great bird with canvas wings, which was entering their distant and infinite domain, the Southern Pacific Ocean. And their numbers increased daily in measure as we progressed. With the "draught-boards" there were pearl-grey petrels, the beak and claws lightly tinted with blue and pink; and black molly-mawks; and great, heavy albatrosses, dirty in colour, with their stupid sheepish air, with their immense rigid wings, cleaving the air, whining after us. There was one among them which the sailors pointed out to one another; an Admiral, a bird of a rare and enormous kind, with _three stars_ marked in black on its long wings. The weather had changed and become calm, misty, mournful. The south trade wind had died away in its turn, and the clearness of the tropics was no more. A great damp cold surprised our senses. We were in August and the winter of the southern hemisphere was beginning. When we looked round the empty horizon, it seemed that the north, the side of the sun and of living countries, was still blue and clear; while the south, the side of the Pole and of the watery deserts, was dark and gloomy. As a favour to me, Yves had obtained for his parrot a reserved compartment in the Commander's hen coop, and he used to go every evening to cover it with a piece of sailcloth in order to protect it from the night air. Every day the sailors used to "fish" with their lines for "draught-boards" and petrels. There were rows of these birds, skinned like rabbits, hanging all red in the foreshrouds, waiting their turn to be eaten. After two or three days, when they had rendered all the oil in their bodies, they were ready for cooking.