No, it was not a corpse; but the token of many corpses. A fragment
of some ship; its gay green paint and half-effaced gilding
contrasting mockingly with the long ugly feathered barnacle-shells,
which clustered on it, rotting into slime beneath the sun, and torn
and scattered by the greedy beaks of the ravens.

In what tropic tornado, or on what coral-key of the Bahamas, months
ago, to judge by those barnacles, had that tall ship gone down? How
long had that scrap of wreck gone wandering down the Gulf Stream,
from Newfoundland into the Mid-Atlantic, and hitherward on its
homeless voyage toward the Spitzbergen shore? And who were all those
living men who "went down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of
heroes," to give no sign until the sea shall render up her dead? And
every one of them had a father and mother--a wife, perhaps, and
children, waiting for him--at least a whole human life, childhood,
boyhood, manhood, in him. All those years of toil and education, to
get him so far on his life-voyage; and here is the end thereof!'

'Say rather, the beginning thereof,' Claude answered, stepping into
the boat. 'This wreck is but a torn scrap of the chrysalis-cocoon;
we may meet the butterflies themselves hereafter.'

* * * * *

And now we are on board; and alas! some time before the breeze will
be so. Take care of that huge boom, landsman Claude, swaying and
sweeping backwards and forwards across the deck, unless you wish to
be knocked overboard. Take care, too, of that loose rope's end,
unless you wish to have your eyes cut out. Take my advice, lie down