In the meantime, in this fine weather, the Elsinore drifts as she
lists, or as the windage of her lists and the sea-movement of waves
lists. And she can well drift. Let the mutineers starve. They can
best be brought to their senses through their stomachs.
And what are wits for, if not for use? I am breaking the men's
hungry hearts. It is great fun in its way. The mollyhawks and
albatrosses, after their fashion, have followed the Elsinore up out
of their own latitudes. This means that there are only so many of
them and that their numbers are not recruited. Syllogism: major
premise, a definite and limited amount of bird-meat; minor premise,
the only food the mutineers now have is bird-meat; conclusion,
destroy the available food and the mutineers will be compelled to
come back to duty.
I have acted on this bit of logic. I began experimentally by tossing
small chunks of fat pork and crusts of stale bread overside. When
the birds descended for the feast I shot them. Every carcass thus
left floating on the surface of the sea was so much less meat for the
mutineers.
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