I sighted, from my lookout one morning, an island in the west, my heart thudding with joy at the thought that we might have miraculously returned to the island so recently left behind—but the island was one of those known as the Sandwich Islands. We did not stop or even deviate from our northerly course, for this archipelago was already well explored and the captain was anxious to arrive at our destination before the northern autumn, when conditions for sailing become anything but pacific.

The day after this sighting, I saw an albatross that had set its course to that of the ship, eyeing, no doubt, the school of pilot fish following in our wake. The crew, much perturbed by the nightly screams emanating from the doctor’s quarters, were delighted at the omen. The albatross continued to follow us for three days, gliding overhead hour after hour, waiting for the cook to throw his kitchen scraps overboard and for the pilot fish to rise to the surface to feast on them. Then it would dive to the water to eat its fill. At night, it would perch atop the foremast and rest there. On the third day it flew off, taking with it the little glimmer of happiness it had brought us.

The Solide continued to sail north across the ocean. I tried to mind my own affairs, attending to my chores and keeping lookout at my post. I became accustomed to my new body. It was, for the most part, an easy body to inhabit. Though Joubert was but twenty years old, he had been at sea more than half his life. Before that, he had lived the life of a street urchin in Toulon. I loved the freedom and the rigors of the sailor’s life. The freedoms of port life, on the other hand, I could not abide: I had inherited a taste for rum, a cunning mind, and a vindictive temper to match. I bore bitter grudges that I could never let die. I was the most loyal of friends, but in the role of foe, the merest unresolved slight might become, in the shadows of my heart, a lifelong vendetta bearing little resemblance to the modesty of its origin.