I seized the big bird by the legs and found its weight by no means so considerable as I should have supposed from the blow it dealt me. So, tightly binding its webbed feet with my pocket-handkerchief, that they might serve me as a handle, I dropped with this strange, dead sea-messenger through the wide square of the lubber’s hole into the main shrouds, and leisurely descended. The chief mate stood at the head of the starboard poop ladder as I reached the rail. “Hillo!” he called out, “good sport there, Mr. Catesby. What star have you been shooting over pray? And what _is_ it may I ask? A _turkey_?” A shout of this sort was enough to bring everybody running to look. The music ceased, the dancing abruptly stopped. In a moment I was surrounded by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen shoving and exclaiming as they gathered about the skylight upon which I had laid the big sea-fowl. “What is it, Mr. Catesby? My stars! a handsome bird surely,” exclaimed Captain Bow. “Oh, Captain,” cried a young lady, “is the beautiful creature dead really?” “See!” shouted a military man, “the creature’s breast is decorated with a crucifix. No, damme, it’s a trick of the light. What is it, though?” “A silver pouncebox, I declare,” exclaimed a tall, stout lady, with a knowing nod of the feather in her head. “A sailor’s nickel tobacco-box more like, ma’am,” observed the mate, “with some castaway’s writing inside, or that bird’s a crocodile.” “Let’s have the story of the thing, Mr. Catesby,” said the captain. I briefly stated that I had ascended to the maintop to breathe the cool air up there and that whilst I was nodding the bird had dashed against me and fallen dead across my knees. “Oh, how dreadful!” “Oh, how interesting!” “Oh, I wonder the fright didn’t make you faint, Mr. Catesby!” and so on, and so on from the young ladies. “Shall I cast the seizing of the box adrift, sir?” said the mate. “Ay,” responded the captain. The officer with his knife severed the laniard of sennit and made to lift the lid of the box. But this proved a long job, inexpressibly vexatious to the thirsty expectations of the onlookers, owing to the lid fitting as to resist, as though soldered, the blade of the knife. When opened at last, there was disclosed, sure enough, inside, a piece of paper folded, apparently a leaf from a logbook. “Bring a lantern, some one,” roared the mate. Some one held a light close to the officer, who exclaimed, after opening the sheet and gazing at it a little, “Any lady or gentleman here understand Spanish?” “I do,” exclaimed the handsome young “griffin” who had sat next to the colonel’s lady at table. “Will you kindly translate this then?” said the mate, handing him the letter. “It’s French,” said the young fellow; “no matter; I can read French.” He ran his eye over the page, coughed and read aloud as follows:--