"The hardships endured by this small remnant of the ship's company were not very great. They managed to live. The weather was fine, and they did not at first trouble themselves about any permanent shelter. Perhaps, too, in spite of their seaman's knowledge of the position they were in, some dim hope of a ship out of her course as they had been, picking them off, buoyed them up with the fancy that 'it was not worth while.' But no ship appeared; and they built themselves a hut near the albatross's nest, and began to talk of other seasons, and provision for the future. They kept a look-out by turns through the daylight, and by night when the moon and stars made the distance visible. Every morning the sun rising above the sea met the captain's keen eyes scanning the horizon, and every evening that closed a day's fruitless watch, the sun's going down saw the captain's brown hands clasped together as he said, 'God's will be done!' "So days became weeks, and weeks ripened into months, and Carlo became used to his new home, and happy in it, and kept watch over his master, and took his ease as usual. But the men's appearance changed, and their clothes began to look shabby. In the first place they were wearing out, and, secondly, they seemed--as we say--to be 'getting too large' for them, and to hang loosely and untidily upon their gaunt frames. The captain's eyes looked larger and sadder, and his voice grew hollow at sunset, and threads of white began to show among his dark curls, and increased in number day by day. "'His plumage will be as white as your own very soon,' said the Mother Albatross. 'I suppose it's the climate that does it.' "'He is getting older,' said her mate; 'men, like ourselves, get white as they get old.' "'But he has been here so short a time,' said Mother Albatross. "'He is so much the older, however,' said the father bird, and his mate said no more; for she knew by the tone of his voice when he had got to the end of his available information on any subject, and that beyond this point he did not like to be pressed. "'It's hard, it's very hard, captain, and I can't submit as you do,' said one of the men one day. He and the captain were sitting side by side at the look out, their elbows on their knees, and their chins upon their hands. "'And yet it's harder for me than for you,' said the captain. 'One must die some day. It's not that. And you are a single man, Barker, without ties.' "The man stooped down, and taking one of Carlo's long ears in his hand, played absently with it, as he said--