<P> Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the albatross About my neck was hung . </P> <P> Eventually, the ship encounters a ghostly hulk . On board are Death (a skeleton) and the "Night - mare Life - in - Death", a deathly - pale woman, who are playing dice for the souls of the crew . With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life - in - Death the life of the mariner, a prize she considers more valuable . Her name is a clue to the mariner's fate: he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross . </P> <P> One by one, all of the crew members die, but the mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces . Eventually, this stage of the mariner's curse is lifted after he appreciates the sea creatures swimming in the water . Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem, he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them ("a spring of love gush'd from my heart, and I bless'd them unaware"); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated . The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and help steer the ship . In a trance, the mariner hears two spirits discussing his voyage and penance, and learns that the ship is being powered preternaturally: </P> <P> The air is cut away before, And closes from behind . </P>

Water all around and not a drop to drink