Thus I reasoned with myself after my talk with Cliffe in the evening and was somewhat easier at heart, which indeed in this whistling evening, merry with progress, spacious with the splendour of the setting sun, and the distance of the eastern seaboard faintly flushed, might have been at rest but for the gloom of the silly superstition of thirteen! About this time, a little before it fell dark, whilst looking towards the forecastle where most of the crew were smoking and talking, I saw a man come out of the hatch, hugging something to his breast. The sailors jumped up and pressed around him. Hands were outstretched to what the fellow held, and I heard some laughter. Cliffe was below. The mate Bland was walking near me abreast of the skylight. He bawled out: 'What have you there, my lads?' On which the boatswain Bodkin, snatching the object from the hold of the man, held it high, shouting: 'Here's good luck to the brig "Albatross;" and now there's fourteen all told.' I started, and saw it was a cat he held. It was black as coal. 'Bring it here,' I cried. He came, the others grinning as they stood in a huddle looking aft. It was a young cat, and it mewed as the man approached with it. Cliffe came on deck at that moment. 'Where was it found?' I asked, stroking the thing as it lay mewing in Bodkin's hands. 'In one of the men's hammocks, sir.' 'It's a cat!' exclaimed Cliffe with a grimace. 'Who brought it aboard?' 'No man owns to it,' responded Bodkin. 'But who would bring it aboard if it wasn't its own legs, Mr. Moore?' said Cliffe, turning to me. 'D'ye know I'd ask for no better stroke of luck in all my seafaring days than this same beast's presence,' and he advanced his little hand and tickled the cat's head. 'There's fourteen of us now, sir,' said Bodkin, with a darting roll of his eyes. 'Fourteen and a stroke of luck besides, eh?' said I with a foolish laugh of good spirits spite of myself. 'Go and give it something to eat and see that it don't jump overboard,' said Captain Cliffe; and whilst the boatswain walked forward handling the cat tenderly enough and talking to it, the little skipper with a snap of his eyes and a voice of conviction exclaimed: 'That cat's squared the yards, Mr. Moore. We shall find the wreck, sir, and do your business.' CHAPTER XXVI THE ICE On the morning of January 29, 1861, Captain Cliffe at dinner told me that our position by dead reckoning--he had not been able to obtain an observation for two days--was latitude 58° 30´ S., longitude 45° W. I pulled out my note-book on hearing this and started violently. 'Good God, Cliffe!' cried I, 'do you know that we are within a mile or two of the place where the "Lady Emma" was abandoned by her crew?' 'Is that so?' said the little man after a pause, closing his knife and fork. 'But it's true all the same: I'll back my runs for the last two days, log-reckoned as they are, right, longitude and latitude, within ten mile.'