ascanius

Hello all.
Just put in to harbor.
It was one hell of a trip. The Albatross left New Bedford six months ago to hunt for makos in the southern seas. We hadn't been out for two weeks when the first mate seen some lights from atop the fo'c'sle and called the captain up. Now, old Captain Aubrey is a shrewd old dog, and he claps up there just as quick as kiss my hand. "'Tis a passing schooner," says he, but the word goes round the ship of faerie fire. Bad omen, that is. Sign of hard things to come. Well, friends, they came and they came quickly. No sooner had the lights died down when a fog rolls in thicker than the wool on a highland ewe. Well that fog held for seven days and seven nights. You think our sextant was any use in that? To make matters worse, every lode stone on the ship began to spin about of its own free will.

On the eigth morning I awoke (I'd had the dog watch and was fast asleep) to cries of joy from the first watch. The sun had burned through that damn fog and things were beginning to clear up. Our jubilation did not last long.

By noon the fog was nothing but a wispy phantasm of itself but there was no comfort in this. To windward there rose what we took to be a mountain at first. As current and wind pushed us ever closer we realized it was no mountain God created. We stood before the cyclopean ruins of a structure not seen by human kind for untold generations.

I'll get back to this later if I have time. At the moment the black draught works its magic on me.