initial commit of ebook 220HEADmain

1 files changed, 2105 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/sshar11.txt b/old/sshar11.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb47b9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/sshar11.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2105 @@
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad
+
+Febraury, 1995  [Etext #220]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
+*****This file should be named sshar10.txt or sshar10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, sshar10.txt.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, sshar10a.txt.
+
+
+This etext was created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska.
+The equipment: an IBM-compatible 486/50, a Hewlett-Packard
+ScanJet IIc flatbed scanner, and Calera Recognition Systems'
+M/600 Series Professional OCR software and RISC accelerator board
+donated by Calera Recognition Systems.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4
+million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text
+files per month:  thus upping our productivity from $2 million.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end
+of the year 2001.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois
+Benedictine College).  (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go
+to IBC, too)
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive
+Director:
+hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet)   hart@uiucvmd   (bitnet)
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext90 through /etext95
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET INDEX?00.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
+     Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Illinois Benedictine College".
+
+This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney
+Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093)
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRET SHARER
+
+by Joseph Conrad
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling
+a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences,
+incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes,
+and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by some nomad
+tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean;
+for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye
+could reach.  To the left a group of barren islets,
+suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses,
+had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid,
+so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the track
+of light from the westering sun shone smoothly, without that
+animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible ripple.
+And when I turned my head to take a parting glance at the tug
+which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight
+line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge,
+with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor
+half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky.
+Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea,
+two small clumps of trees, one on each side of the only fault
+in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river Meinam
+we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our
+homeward journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger
+and loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great Paknam pagoda,
+was the only thing on which the eye could rest from the vain
+task of exploring the monotonous sweep of the horizon.
+Here and there gleams as of a few scattered pieces of silver marked
+the windings of the great river; and on the nearest of them,
+just within the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became
+lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as though the impassive
+earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a tremor.
+My eye followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here,
+now there, above the plain, according to the devious curves
+of the stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I lost
+it at last behind the miter-shaped hill of the great pagoda.
+And then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the head
+of the Gulf of Siam.
+
+She floated at the starting point of a long journey, very still in an
+immense stillness, the shadows of her spars flung far to the eastward
+by the setting sun.  At that moment I was alone on her decks.
+There was not a sound in her--and around us nothing moved, nothing lived,
+not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky.
+In this breathless pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed
+to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed
+task of both our existences to be carried out, far from all human eyes,
+with only sky and sea for spectators and for judges.
+
+There must have been some glare in the air to interfere with one's sight,
+because it was only just before the sun left us that my roaming eyes
+made out beyond the highest ridges of the principal islet of the group
+something which did away with the solemnity of perfect solitude.
+The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with tropical suddenness
+a swarm of stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet,
+my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder of a
+trusted friend.  But, with all that multitude of celestial bodies staring
+down at one, the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone for good.
+And there were also disturbing sounds by this time--voices, footsteps forward;
+the steward flitted along the main-deck, a busily ministering spirit;
+a hand bell tinkled urgently under the poop deck....
+
+I found my two officers waiting for me near the supper table,
+in the lighted cuddy.  We sat down at once, and as I helped
+the chief mate, I said:
+
+"Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside the islands?
+I saw her mastheads above the ridge as the sun went down."
+
+He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a terrible
+growth of whisker, and emitted his usual ejaculations:
+"Bless my soul, sir!  You don't say so!"
+
+My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young man, grave beyond
+his years, I thought; but as our eyes happened to meet I
+detected a slight quiver on his lips.  I looked down at once.
+It was not my part to encourage sneering on board my ship.
+It must be said, too, that I knew very little of my officers.
+In consequence of certain events of no particular significance,
+except to myself, I had been appointed to the command only a
+fortnight before.  Neither did I know much of the hands forward.
+All these people had been together for eighteen months or so,
+and my position was that of the only stranger on board.
+I mention this because it has some bearing on what is to follow.
+But what I felt most was my being a stranger to the ship;
+and if all the truth must be told, I was somewhat of a stranger
+to myself.  The youngest man on board (barring the second mate),
+and untried as yet by a position of the fullest responsibility,
+I was willing to take the adequacy of the others for granted.
+They had simply to be equal to their tasks; but I wondered
+how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception
+of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly.
+
+
+Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible effect of collaboration
+on the part of his round eyes and frightful whiskers, was trying to evolve
+a theory of the anchored ship.  His dominant trait was to take all things
+into earnest consideration.  He was of a painstaking turn of mind.
+As he used to say, he "liked to account to himself" for practically
+everything that came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion
+he had found in his cabin a week before.  The why and the wherefore
+of that scorpion--how it got on board and came to select his room
+rather than the pantry (which was a dark place and more what a scorpion
+would be partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown itself
+in the inkwell of his writing desk--had exercised him infinitely.
+The ship within the islands was much more easily accounted for;
+and just as we were about to rise from table he made his pronouncement.
+She was, he doubted not, a ship from home lately arrived.  Probably she
+drew too much water to cross the bar except at the top of spring tides.
+Therefore she went into that natural harbor to wait for a few days
+in preference to remaining in an open roadstead.
+
+"That's so," confirmed the second mate, suddenly, in his
+slightly hoarse voice.  "She draws over twenty feet.
+She's the Liverpool ship Sephora with a cargo of coal.
+Hundred and twenty-three days from Cardiff."
+
+We looked at him in surprise.
+
+"The tugboat skipper told me when he came on board
+for your letters, sir," explained the young man.
+"He expects to take her up the river the day after tomorrow."
+
+After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his information
+he slipped out of the cabin.  The mate observed regretfully
+that he "could not account for that young fellow's whims."
+What prevented him telling us all about it at once,
+he wanted to know.
+
+I detained him as he was making a move.  For the last two days the crew had
+had plenty of hard work, and the night before they had very little sleep.
+I felt painfully that I--a stranger--was doing something unusual when I
+directed him to let all hands turn in without setting an anchor watch.
+I proposed to keep on deck myself till one o'clock or thereabouts.
+I would get the second mate to relieve me at that hour.
+
+"He will turn out the cook and the steward at four," I concluded,
+"and then give you a call.  Of course at the slightest sign of any
+sort of wind we'll have the hands up and make a start at once."
+
+He concealed his astonishment.  "Very well, sir."  Outside the cuddy
+he put his head in the second mate's door to inform him of my
+unheard-of caprice to take a five hours' anchor watch on myself.
+I heard the other raise his voice incredulously--"What? The
+Captain himself?"  Then a few more murmurs, a door closed, then another.
+A few moments later I went on deck.
+
+My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had prompted that
+unconventional arrangement, as if I had expected in those solitary
+hours of the night to get on terms with the ship of which I
+knew nothing, manned by men of whom I knew very little more.
+Fast alongside a wharf, littered like any ship in port with a
+tangle of unrelated things, invaded by unrelated shore people,
+I had hardly seen her yet properly.  Now, as she lay cleared for sea,
+the stretch of her main-deck seemed to me very find under the stars.
+Very fine, very roomy for her size, and very inviting.
+I descended the poop and paced the waist, my mind picturing
+to myself the coming passage through the Malay Archipelago,
+down the Indian Ocean, and up the Atlantic.  All its phases
+were familiar enough to me, every characteristic, all the
+alternatives which were likely to face me on the high seas--
+everything! . . . except the novel responsibility of command.
+But I took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship
+was like other ships, the men like other men, and that the sea
+was not likely to keep any special surprises expressly
+for my discomfiture.
+
+Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I bethought myself
+of a cigar and went below to get it.  All was still down there.
+Everybody at the after end of the ship was sleeping profoundly.
+I came out again on the quarter-deck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping
+suit on that warm breathless night, barefooted, a glowing cigar
+in my teeth, and, going forward, I was met by the profound silence of
+the fore end of the ship.  Only as I passed the door of the forecastle,
+I heard a deep, quiet, trustful sigh of some sleeper inside.
+And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared
+with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life
+presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary
+moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal
+and by the singleness of its purpose.
+
+The riding light in the forerigging burned with a clear, untroubled,
+as if symbolic, flame, confident and bright in the mysterious
+shades of the night.  Passing on my way aft along the other side
+of the ship, I observed that the rope side ladder, put over, no doubt,
+for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters,
+had not been hauled in as it should have been.  I became annoyed at this,
+for exactitude in some small matters is the very soul of discipline.
+Then I reflected that I had myself peremptorily dismissed my
+officers from duty, and by my own act had prevented the anchor
+watch being formally set and things properly attended to.
+I asked myself whether it was wise ever to interfere with the
+established routine of duties even from the kindest of motives.
+My action might have made me appear eccentric.  Goodness only knew
+how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct,
+and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new captain.
+I was vexed with myself.
+
+Not from compunction certainly, but, as it were mechanically,
+I proceeded to get the ladder in myself.  Now a side ladder
+of that sort is a light affair and comes in easily, yet my
+vigorous tug, which should have brought it flying on board,
+merely recoiled upon my body in a totally unexpected jerk.
+What the devil! . . . I was so astounded by the immovableness
+of that ladder that I remained stockstill, trying to
+account for it to myself like that imbecile mate of mine.
+In the end, of course, I put my head over the rail.
+
+The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on
+the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea.  But I saw at once
+something elongated and pale floating very close to the ladder.
+Before I could form a guess a faint flash of phosphorescent light,
+which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man,
+flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive, silent play
+of summer lightning in a night sky.  With a gasp I saw revealed
+to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid back
+immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow.
+One hand, awash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder.
+He was complete but for the head.  A headless corpse!  The cigar
+dropped out of my gaping mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss
+quite audible in the absolute stillness of all things under heaven.
+At that I suppose he raised up his face, a dimly pale oval
+in the shadow of the ship's side.  But even then I could only
+barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired head.
+However, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensation
+which had gripped me about the chest to pass off.
+The moment of vain exclamations was past, too.  I only climbed
+on the spare spar and leaned over the rail as far as I could,
+to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery floating alongside.
+
+As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea
+lightning played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared
+in it ghastly, silvery, fishlike.  He remained as mute as
+a fish, too.  He made no motion to get out of the water, either.
+It was inconceivable that he should not attempt to come on board,
+and strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not want to.
+And my first words were prompted by just that troubled incertitude.
+
+"What's the matter?"  I asked in my ordinary tone, speaking down to the face
+upturned exactly under mine.
+
+"Cramp," it answered, no louder.  Then slightly anxious, "I say,
+no need to call anyone."
+
+"I was not going to," I said.
+
+"Are you alone on deck?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the ladder
+to swim away beyond my ken--mysterious as he came.  But, for the moment,
+this being appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the sea
+(it was certainly the nearest land to the ship) wanted only to know the time.
+I told him.  And he, down there, tentatively:
+
+"I suppose your captain's turned in?"
+
+"I am sure he isn't," I said.
+
+He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard something
+like the low, bitter murmur of doubt.  "What's the good?"
+His next words came out with a hesitating effort.
+
+"Look here, my man.  Could you call him out quietly?"
+
+I thought the time Had come to declare myself.
+
+"I am the captain."
+
+I heard a "By Jove!" whispered at the level of the water.
+The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the water all
+about his limbs, his other hand seized the ladder.
+
+"My name's Leggatt."
+
+The voice was calm and resolute.  A good voice.  The self-possession
+of that man had somehow induced a corresponding state in myself.
+It was very quietly that I remarked:
+
+"You must be a good swimmer."
+
+"Yes.  I've been in the water practically since nine o'clock.
+The question for me now is whether I am to let go this ladder
+and go on swimming till I sink from exhaustion, or--to come
+on board here."
+
+I felt this was no mere formula of desperate speech,
+but a real alternative in the view of a strong soul.
+I should have gathered from this that he was young; indeed, it is
+only the young who are ever confronted by such clear issues.
+But at the time it was pure intuition on my part.
+A mysterious communication was established already between
+us two--in the face of that silent, darkened tropical sea.
+I was young, too; young enough to make no comment.
+The man in the water began suddenly to climb up the ladder,
+and I hastened away from the rail to fetch some clothes.
+
+Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in the lobby at
+the foot of the stairs.  A faint snore came through the closed door
+of the chief mate's room.  The second mate's door was on the hook,
+but the darkness in there was absolutely soundless.  He, too,
+was young and could sleep like a stone.  Remained the steward,
+but he was not likely to wake up before he was called.
+I got a sleeping suit out of my room and, coming back on deck,
+saw the naked man from the sea sitting on the main hatch,
+glimmering white in the darkness, his elbows on his knees and his
+head in his hands.  In a moment he had concealed his damp body
+in a sleeping suit of the same gray-stripe pattern as the one
+I was wearing and followed me like my double on the poop.
+Together we moved right aft, barefooted, silent.
+
+"What is it?"  I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp
+out of the binnacle, and raising it to his face.
+
+"An ugly business."
+
+He had rather regular features; a good mouth; light eyes under
+somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth, square forehead; no growth
+on his cheeks; a small, brown mustache, and a well-shaped, round chin.
+His expression was concentrated, meditative, under the inspecting
+light of the lamp I held up to his face; such as a man thinking
+hard in solitude might wear.  My sleeping suit was just right
+for his size.  A well-knit young fellow of twenty-five at most.
+He caught his lower lip with the edge of white, even teeth.
+
+"Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle.
+The warm, heavy tropical night closed upon his head again.
+
+"There's a ship over there," he murmured.
+
+"Yes, I know.  The Sephora.  Did you know of us?"
+
+"Hadn't the slightest idea.  I am the mate of her--"
+He paused and corrected himself.  "I should say I WAS."
+
+"Aha!  Something wrong?"
+
+"Yes.  Very wrong indeed.  I've killed a man."
+
+"What do you mean?  Just now?"
+
+"No, on the passage.  Weeks ago.  Thirty-nine south.
+When I say a man--"
+
+"Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.
+
+The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly
+above the ghostly gray of my sleeping suit.  It was, in the night,
+as though I had been faced by my own reflection in the depths
+of a somber and immense mirror.
+
+"A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy,"
+murmured my double, distinctly.
+
+"You're a Conway boy?"
+
+"I am," he said, as if startled.  Then, slowly . . . "Perhaps you too--"
+
+It was so; but being a couple of years older I had left before
+he joined.  After a quick interchange of dates a silence fell;
+and I thought suddenly of my absurd mate with his terrific whiskers
+and the "Bless my soul--you don't say so" type of intellect.
+My double gave me an inkling of his thoughts by saying:
+"My father's a parson in Norfolk.  Do you see me before a judge
+and jury on that charge?  For myself I can't see the necessity.
+There are fellows that an angel from heaven--And I am not that.
+He was one of those creatures that are just simmering
+all the time with a silly sort of wickedness.
+Miserable devils that have no business to live at all.
+He wouldn't do his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do theirs.
+But what's the good of talking!  You know well enough the sort
+of ill-conditioned snarling cur--"
+
+He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as identical as our clothes.
+And I knew well enough the pestiferous danger of such a character where there
+are no means of legal repression.  And I knew well enough also that my double
+there was no homicidal ruffian.  I did not think of asking him for details,
+and he told me the story roughly in brusque, disconnected sentences.
+I needed no more.  I saw it all going on as though I were myself inside
+that other sleeping suit.
+
+"It happened while we were setting a reefed foresail, at dusk.
+Reefed foresail!  You understand the sort of weather.  The only sail we
+had left to keep the ship running; so you may guess what it had been
+like for days.  Anxious sort of job, that.  He gave me some of his cursed
+insolence at the sheet.  I tell you I was overdone with this terrific weather
+that seemed to have no end to it.  Terrific, I tell you--and a deep ship.
+I believe the fellow himself was half crazed with funk.  It was no time
+for gentlemanly reproof, so I turned round and felled him like an ox.
+He up and at me.  We closed just as an awful sea made for the ship.
+All hands saw it coming and took to the rigging, but I had him by
+the throat, and went on shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling,
+`Look out! look out!'  Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head.
+They say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen
+of the ship--just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head
+and of the poop all awash driving along in a smother of foam.
+It was a miracle that they found us, jammed together behind the forebitts.
+It's clear that I meant business, because I was holding him by the throat
+still when they picked us up.  He was black in the face.  It was too much
+for them.  It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped as we were,
+screaming `Murder!' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy.
+And the ship running for her life, touch and go all the time, any minute
+her last in a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at it.
+I understand that the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them.
+The man had been deprived of sleep for more than a week, and to have
+this sprung on him at the height of a furious gale nearly drove him
+out of his mind.  I wonder they didn't fling me overboard after
+getting the carcass of their precious shipmate out of my fingers.
+They had rather a job to separate us, I've been told.  A sufficiently
+fierce story to make an old judge and a respectable jury sit up a bit.
+The first thing I heard when I came to myself was the maddening
+howling of that endless gale, and on that the voice of the old man.
+He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face out of his sou'wester.
+
+"`Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man.  You can act no longer
+as chief mate of this ship.'"
+
+His care to subdue his voice made it sound monotonous.
+He rested a hand on the end of the skylight to steady himself with,
+and all that time did not stir a limb, so far as I could see.
+"Nice little tale for a quiet tea party," he concluded
+in the same tone.
+
+One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the skylight; neither did I stir
+a limb, so far as I knew.  We stood less than a foot from each other.
+It occurred to me that if old "Bless my soul--you don't say so"
+were to put his head up the companion and catch sight of us,
+he would think he was seeing double, or imagine himself come
+upon a scene of weird witchcraft; the strange captain having
+a quiet confabulation by the wheel with his own gray ghost.
+I became very much concerned to prevent anything of the sort.
+I heard the other's soothing undertone.
+
+"My father's a parson in Norfolk," it said.  Evidently he had
+forgotten he had told me this important fact before.
+Truly a nice little tale.
+
+"You had better slip down into my stateroom now," I said,
+moving off stealthily.  My double followed my movements;
+our bare feet made no sound; I let him in, closed the door
+with care, and, after giving a call to the second mate,
+returned on deck for my relief.
+
+"Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when he approached.
+
+"No, sir.  Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice,
+with just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn.
+
+"Well, that's all you have to look out for.  You have got your orders."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face
+forward with his elbow in the ratlines of the mizzen rigging before I
+went below.  The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully.
+The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase
+with flowers, a polite attention from the ship's provision merchant--
+the last flowers we should see for the next three months at the very least.
+Two bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetrically, one on each
+side of the rudder casing.  Everything was as before in the ship--
+except that two of her captain's sleeping suits were simultaneously
+in use, one motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very still
+in the captain's stateroom.
+
+It must be explained here that my cabin had the form of the capital
+letter L, the door being within the angle and opening into the short part
+of the letter.  A couch was to the left, the bed place to the right;
+my writing desk and the chronometers' table faced the door.
+But anyone opening it, unless he stepped right inside, had no
+view of what I call the long (or vertical) part of the letter.
+It contained some lockers surmounted by a bookcase; and a few clothes,
+a thick jacket or two, caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks.
+There was at the bottom of that part a door opening into my bathroom,
+which could be entered also directly from the saloon.
+But that way was never used.
+
+The mysterious arrival had discovered the advantage of this particular shape.
+Entering my room, lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung on gimbals
+above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he stepped out quietly
+from behind the coats hung in the recessed part.
+
+"I heard somebody moving about, and went in there at once," he whispered.
+
+I, too, spoke under my breath.
+
+"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting permission."
+
+He nodded.  His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though
+he had been ill.  And no wonder.  He had been, I heard presently,
+kept under arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks.
+But there was nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression.
+He was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning
+over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our dark heads
+together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to open
+it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight
+of a double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self.
+
+"But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang on to our side ladder,"
+I inquired, in the hardly audible murmurs we used, after he had told
+me something more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the bad
+weather was over.
+
+"When we sighted Java Head I had had time to think all those matters
+out several times over.  I had six weeks of doing nothing else,
+and with only an hour or so every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck."
+
+He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my bed place, staring through
+the open port.  And I could imagine perfectly the manner of this thinking out--
+a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of which I should have
+been perfectly incapable.
+
+"I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with the land,"
+he continued, so low that I had to strain my hearing near
+as we were to each other, shoulder touching shoulder almost.
+"So I asked to speak to the old man.  He always seemed
+very sick when he came to see me--as if he could not look
+me in the face.  You know, that foresail saved the ship.
+She was too deep to have run long under bare poles.
+And it was I that managed to set it for him.  Anyway, he came.
+When I had him in my cabin--he stood by the door looking
+at me as if I had the halter round my neck already--
+I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked
+at night while the ship was going through Sunda Straits.
+There would be the Java coast within two or three miles,
+off Angier Point.  I wanted nothing more.  I've had a prize
+for swimming my second year in the Conway."
+
+"I can believe it," I breathed out.
+
+"God only knows why they locked me in every night.
+To see some of their faces you'd have thought they
+were afraid I'd go about at night strangling people.
+Am I a murdering brute?  Do I look it?  By Jove!  If I had been
+he wouldn't have trusted himself like that into my room.
+You'll say I might have chucked him aside and bolted out,
+there and then--it was dark already.  Well, no.  And for
+the same reason I wouldn't think of trying to smash the door.
+There would have been a rush to stop me at the noise,
+and I did not mean to get into a confounded scrimmage.
+Somebody else might have got killed--for I would not have
+broken out only to get chucked back, and I did not want any
+more of that work.  He refused, looking more sick than ever.
+He was afraid of the men, and also of that old second mate of his
+who had been sailing with him for years--a gray-headed old humbug;
+and his steward, too, had been with him devil knows how long--
+seventeen years or more--a dogmatic sort of loafer who hated
+me like poison, just because I was the chief mate.  No chief
+mate ever made more than one voyage in the Sephora, you know.
+Those two old chaps ran the ship.  Devil only knows what the skipper
+wasn't afraid of (all his nerve went to pieces altogether
+in that hellish spell of bad weather we had)--of what the law
+would do to him--of his wife, perhaps.  Oh, yes! she's on board.
+Though I don't think she would have meddled.  She would have
+been only too glad to have me out of the ship in any way.
+The `brand of Cain' business, don't you see.  That's all right.
+I was ready enough to go off wandering on the face of the earth--
+and that was price enough to pay for an Abel of that sort.
+Anyhow, he wouldn't listen to me.  'This thing must take its course.
+I represent the law here.'  He was shaking like a leaf.
+`So you won't?' `No!' 'Then I hope you will be able to sleep on that,'
+I said, and turned my back on him.  `I wonder that you can,'
+cries he, and locks the door.
+
+"Well after that, I couldn't. Not very well.
+That was three weeks ago.  We have had a slow passage
+through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata for ten days.
+When we anchored here they thought, I suppose, it was all right.
+The nearest land (and that's five miles) is the ship's destination;
+the consul would soon set about catching me; and there would
+have been no object in bolding to these islets there.
+I don't suppose there's a drop of water on them.  I don't know
+how it was, but tonight that steward, after bringing me my supper,
+went out to let me eat it, and left the door unlocked.
+And I ate it--all there was, too.  After I had finished I strolled
+out on the quarter-deck. I don't know that I meant to do anything.
+A breath of fresh air was all I wanted, I believe.
+Then a sudden temptation came over me.  I kicked off my slippers
+and was in the water before I had made up my mind fairly.
+Somebody heard the splash and they raised an awful hullabaloo.
+`He's gone!  Lower the boats!  He's committed suicide!
+No, he's swimming.'  Certainly I was swimming.  It's not
+so easy for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by drowning.
+I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the ship's side.
+I heard them pulling about in the dark, hailing, and so on, but after
+a bit they gave up.  Everything quieted down and the anchorage
+became still as death.  I sat down on a stone and began to think.
+I felt certain they would start searching for me at daylight.
+There was no place to hide on those stony things--
+and if there had been, what would have been the good?
+But now I was clear of that ship, I was not going back.
+So after a while I took off all my clothes, tied them up in a
+bundle with a stone inside, and dropped them in the deep water
+on the outer side of that islet.  That was suicide enough for me.
+Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself.
+I meant to swim till I sank--but that's not the same thing.
+I struck out for another of these little islands, and it
+was from that one that I first saw your riding light.
+Something to swim for.  I went on easily, and on the way I came
+upon a flat rock a foot or two above water.  In the daytime,
+I dare say, you might make it out with a glass from your poop.
+I scrambled up on it and rested myself for a bit.
+Then I made another start.  That last spell must have been
+over a mile."
+
+His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all the time
+he stared straight out through the porthole, in which there
+was not even a star to be seen.  I had not interrupted him.
+There was something that made comment impossible in his narrative,
+or perhaps in himself; a sort of feeling, a quality, which I can't find
+a name for.  And when he ceased, all I found was a futile whisper:
+"So you swam for our light?"
+
+"Yes--straight for it.  It was something to swim for.
+I couldn't see any stars low down because the coast was in the way,
+and I couldn't see the land, either.  The water was like glass.
+One might have been swimming in a confounded thousand-feet deep
+cistern with no place for scrambling out anywhere; but what I didn't
+like was the notion of swimming round and round like a crazed
+bullock before I gave out; and as I didn't mean to go back.
+. . No. Do you see me being hauled back, stark naked,
+off one of these little islands by the scruff of the neck
+and fighting like a wild beast?  Somebody would have got killed
+for certain, and I did not want any of that.  So I went on.
+Then your ladder--"
+
+"Why didn't you hail the ship?"  I asked, a little louder.
+
+He touched my shoulder lightly.  Lazy footsteps came right over our heads
+and stopped.  The second mate had crossed from the other side of the poop
+and might have been hanging over the rail for all we knew.
+
+"He couldn't hear us talking--could he?"  My double breathed
+into my very ear, anxiously.
+
+His anxiety was in answer, a sufficient answer, to the question
+I had put to him.  An answer containing all the difficulty
+of that situation.  I closed the porthole quietly, to make sure.
+A louder word might have been overheard.
+
+"Who's that?" he whispered then.
+
+"My second mate.  But I don't know much more of the fellow than you do."
+
+And I told him a little about myself.  I had been appointed to take
+charge while I least expected anything of the sort, not quite
+a fortnight ago.  I didn't know either the ship or the people.
+Hadn't had the time in port to look about me or size anybody up.
+And as to the crew, all they knew was that I was appointed to take
+the ship home.  For the rest, I was almost as much of a stranger on
+board as himself, I said.  And at the moment I felt it most acutely.
+I felt that it would take very little to make me a suspect person
+in the eyes of the ship's company.
+
+He had turned about meantime; and we, the two strangers in the ship,
+faced each other in identical attitudes.
+
+"Your ladder--" he murmured, after a silence.  "Who'd have thought
+of finding a ladder hanging over at night in a ship anchored out here!
+I felt just then a very unpleasant faintness.  After the life I've
+been leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out of condition.
+I wasn't capable of swimming round as far as your rudder chains.
+And, lo and behold! there was a ladder to get hold of.
+After I gripped it I said to myself, `What's the good?'
+When I saw a man's head looking over I thought I would swim away
+presently and leave him shouting--in whatever language it was.
+I didn't mind being looked at.  I--I liked it.  And then you speaking to me
+so quietly--as if you had expected me--made me hold on a little longer.
+It had been a confounded lonely time--I don't mean while swimming.
+I was glad to talk a little to somebody that didn't belong to the Sephora.
+As to asking for the captain, that was a mere impulse.  It could
+have been no use, with all the ship knowing about me and the other
+people pretty certain to be round here in the morning.  I don't know--
+I wanted to be seen, to talk with somebody, before I went on.
+I don't know what I would have said.  . . . `Fine night, isn't it?'
+or something of the sort."
+
+"Do you think they will be round here presently?"
+I asked with some incredulity.
+
+"Quite likely," he said, faintly.
+
+"He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden.  His head rolled
+on his shoulders.
+
+"H'm. We shall see then.  Meantime get into that bed," I whispered.
+"Want help?  There."
+
+It was a rather high bed place with a set of drawers underneath.
+This amazing swimmer really needed the lift I gave him by seizing his leg.
+He tumbled in, rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his eyes.
+And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must have looked exactly as I used
+to look in that bed.  I gazed upon my other self for a while before drawing
+across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran on a brass rod.
+I thought for a moment of pinning them together for greater safety,
+but I sat down on the couch, and once there I felt unwilling to rise
+and hunt for a pin.  I would do it in a moment.  I was extremely tired,
+in a peculiarly intimate way, by the strain of stealthiness,
+by the effort of whispering and the general secrecy of this excitement.
+It was three o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine,
+but I was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep.  I sat there,
+fagged out, looking at the curtains, trying to clear my mind of the confused
+sensation of being in two places at once, and greatly bothered by an
+exasperating knocking in my head.  It was a relief to discover suddenly
+that it was not in my head at all, but on the outside of the door.
+Before I could collect myself the words "Come in" were out of my mouth,
+and the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my morning coffee.
+I had slept, after all, and I was so frightened that I shouted,
+"This way!  I am here, steward," as though he had been miles away.
+He put down the tray on the table next the couch and only then said,
+very quietly, "I can see you are here, sir."  I felt him give me a keen look,
+but I dared not meet his eyes just then.  He must have wondered why I
+had drawn the curtains of my bed before going to sleep on the couch.
+He went out, hooking the door open as usual.
+
+I heard the crew washing decks above me.  I knew I would have
+been told at once if there had been any wind.  Calm, I thought,
+and I was doubly vexed.  Indeed, I felt dual more than ever.
+The steward reappeared suddenly in the doorway.
+I jumped up from the couch so quickly that he gave a start.
+
+"What do you want here?"
+
+"Close your port, sir--they are washing decks."
+
+"It is closed," I said, reddening.
+
+"Very well, sir."  But he did not move from the doorway and returned
+my stare in an extraordinary, equivocal manner for a time.
+Then his eyes wavered, all his expression changed, and in a voice
+unusually gentle, almost coaxingly:
+
+"May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir?"
+
+"Of course!"  I turned my back on him while he popped in and out.
+Then I unhooked and closed the door and even pushed the bolt.
+This sort of thing could not go on very long.  The cabin was as hot
+as an oven, too.  I took a peep at my double, and discovered
+that he had not moved, his arm was still over his eyes; but his
+chest heaved; his hair was wet; his chin glistened with perspiration.
+I reached over him and opened the port.
+
+"I must show myself on deck," I reflected.
+
+Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked, with no
+one to say nay to me within the whole circle of the horizon;
+but to lock my cabin door and take the key away I did not dare.
+Directly I put my head out of the companion I saw the group
+of my two officers, the second mate barefooted, the chief
+mate in long India-rubber boots, near the break of the poop,
+and the steward halfway down the poop ladder talking to them eagerly.
+He happened to catch sight of me and dived, the second
+ran down on the main-deck shouting some order or other,
+and the chief mate came to meet me, touching his cap.
+
+There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did not like.
+I don't know whether the steward had told them that I was "queer" only,
+or downright drunk, but I know the man meant to have a good look at me.
+I watched him coming with a smile which, as he got into point-blank range,
+took effect and froze his very whiskers.  I did not give him time
+to open his lips.
+
+"Square the yards by lifts and braces before the hands go to breakfast."
+
+It was the first particular order I had given on board that ship;
+and I stayed on deck to see it executed, too.  I had felt the need
+of asserting myself without loss of time.  That sneering young cub
+got taken down a peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized
+the opportunity of having a good look at the face of every
+foremast man as they filed past me to go to the after braces.
+At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, I presided with such
+frigid dignity that the two mates were only too glad to escape from
+the cabin as soon as decency permitted; and all the time the dual
+working of my mind distracted me almost to the point of insanity.
+I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent
+on my actions as my own personality, sleeping in that bed,
+behind that door which faced me as I sat at the head of the table.
+It was very much like being mad, only it was worse because one was
+aware of it.
+
+I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at last he opened his eyes
+it was in the full possession of his senses, with an inquiring look.
+
+"All's well so far," I whispered.  "Now you must vanish into the bathroom."
+
+He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and then I rang for the steward,
+and facing him boldly, directed him to tidy up my stateroom while I was
+having my bath--"and be quick about it."  As my tone admitted of no excuses,
+he said, "Yes, sir," and ran off to fetch his dustpan and brushes.
+I took a bath and did most of my dressing, splashing, and whistling
+softly for the steward's edification, while the secret sharer of my life
+stood drawn up bolt upright in that little space, his face looking
+very sunken in daylight, his eyelids lowered under the stern, dark line
+of his eyebrows drawn together by a slight frown.
+
+When I left him there to go back to my room the steward
+was finishing dusting.  I sent for the mate and engaged him
+in some insignificant conversation.  It was, as it were,
+trifling with the terrific character of his whiskers; but my object
+was to give him an opportunity for a good look at my cabin.
+And then I could at last shut, with a clear conscience, the door
+of my stateroom and get my double back into the recessed part.
+There was nothing else for it.  He had to sit still on a small
+folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats hanging there.
+We listened to the steward going into the bathroom out of
+the saloon, filling the water bottles there, scrubbing the bath,
+setting things to rights, whisk, bang, clatter--out again
+into the saloon--turn the key--click.  Such was my scheme
+for keeping my second self invisible.  Nothing better could
+be contrived under the circumstances.  And there we sat;
+I at my writing desk ready to appear busy with some papers,
+he behind me out of sight of the door.  It would not have
+been prudent to talk in daytime; and I could not have stood
+the excitement of that queer sense of whispering to myself.
+Now and then, glancing over my shoulder, I saw him far back there,
+sitting rigidly on the low stool, his bare feet close together,
+his arms folded, his head hanging on his breast--and perfectly still.
+Anybody would have taken him for me.
+
+I was fascinated by it myself.  Every moment I had to glance
+over my shoulder.  I was looking at him when a voice outside
+the door said:
+
+"Beg pardon, sir."
+
+"Well! . . . I kept my eyes on him, and so when the voice outside
+the door announced, "There's a ship's boat coming our way, sir,"
+I saw him give a start--the first movement he had made for hours.
+But he did not raise his bowed head.
+
+"All right.  Get the ladder over."
+
+I hesitated.  Should I whisper something to him?  But what?
+His immobility seemed to have been never disturbed.
+What could I tell him he did not know already? . . . Finally
+I went on deck.
+
+
+
+II
+
+The skipper of the Sephora had a thin red whisker all round his face,
+and the sort of complexion that goes with hair of that color;
+also the particular, rather smeary shade of blue in the eyes.
+He was not exactly a showy figure; his shoulders were high,
+his stature but middling--one leg slightly more bandy
+than the other.  He shook hands, looking vaguely around.
+A spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged.
+I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert him.
+Perhaps he was shy.  He mumbled to me as if he were ashamed of
+what he was saying; gave his name (it was something like Archbold--
+but at this distance of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name,
+and a few other particulars of that sort, in the manner
+of a criminal making a reluctant and doleful confession.
+He had had terrible weather on the passage out--terrible--terrible--
+wife aboard, too.
+
+By this time we were seated in the cabin and the steward brought in a
+tray with a bottle and glasses.  "Thanks!  No." Never took liquor.
+Would have some water, though.  He drank two tumblerfuls.
+Terrible thirsty work.  Ever since daylight had been exploring
+the islands round his ship.
+
+"What was that for--fun?"  I asked, with an appearance of polite interest.
+
+"No!"  He sighed.  "Painful duty."
+
+As he persisted in his mumbling and I wanted my double to hear every word,
+I hit upon the notion of informing him that I regretted to say I was
+hard of hearing.
+
+"Such a young man, too!" he nodded, keeping his smeary blue,
+unintelligent eyes fastened upon me.  "What was the cause of it--
+some disease?" he inquired, without the least sympathy and as
+if he thought that, if so, I'd got no more than I deserved.
+
+"Yes; disease," I admitted in a cheerful tone which seemed to shock him.
+But my point was gained, because he had to raise his voice to give
+me his tale.  It is not worth while to record his version.
+It was just over two months since all this had happened, and he had thought
+so much about it that he seemed completely muddled as to its bearings,
+but still immensely impressed.
+
+"What would you think of such a thing happening on board your own ship?
+I've had the Sephora for these fifteen years.  I am a well-known shipmaster."
+
+He was densely distressed--and perhaps I should have sympathized
+with him if I had been able to detach my mental vision
+from the unsuspected sharer of my cabin as though he were my
+second self.  There he was on the other side of the bulkhead,
+four or five feet from us, no more, as we sat in the saloon.
+I looked politely at Captain Archbold (if that was his name),
+but it was the other I saw, in a gray sleeping suit, seated on
+a low stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded,
+and every word said between us falling into the ears of his
+dark head bowed on his chest.
+
+"I have been at sea now, man and boy, for seven-and-thirty years,
+and I've never heard of such a thing happening in an English ship.
+And that it should be my ship.  Wife on board, too."
+
+I was hardly listening to him.
+
+"Don't you think," I said, "that the heavy sea which,
+you told me, came aboard just then might have killed the man?
+I have seen the sheer weight of a sea kill a man very neatly,
+by simply breaking his neck."
+
+"Good God!" he uttered, impressively, fixing his smeary blue eyes on me.
+"The sea!  No man killed by the sea ever looked like that."
+He seemed positively scandalized at my suggestion.  And as I gazed
+at him certainly not prepared for anything original on his part,
+he advanced his head close to mine and thrust his tongue out at me
+so suddenly that I couldn't help starting back.
+
+After scoring over my calmness in this graphic way he nodded wisely.
+If I had seen the sight, he assured me, I would never forget it as long
+as I lived.  The weather was too bad to give the corpse a proper sea burial.
+So next day at dawn they took it up on the poop, covering its face
+with a bit of bunting; he read a short prayer, and then, just as it was,
+in its oilskins and long boots, they launched it amongst those mountainous
+seas that seemed ready every moment to swallow up the ship herself
+and the terrified lives on board of her.
+
+"That reefed foresail saved you," I threw in.
+
+"Under God--it did," he exclaimed fervently.  "It was by a special mercy,
+I firmly believe, that it stood some of those hurricane squalls."
+
+"It was the setting of that sail which--" I began.
+
+"God's own hand in it," he interrupted me.  "Nothing less could have done it.
+I don't mind telling you that I hardly dared give the order.
+It seemed impossible that we could touch anything without losing it,
+and then our last hope would have been gone."
+
+The terror of that gale was on him yet.  I let him go on for a bit,
+then said, casually--as if returning to a minor subject:
+
+"You were very anxious to give up your mate to the shore people, I believe?"
+
+He was.  To the law.  His obscure tenacity on that point had in it
+something incomprehensible and a little awful; something, as it
+were, mystical, quite apart from his anxiety that he should
+not be suspected of "countenancing any doings of that sort."
+Seven-and-thirty virtuous years at sea, of which over twenty
+of immaculate command, and the last fifteen in the Sephora,
+seemed to have laid him under some pitiless obligation.
+
+"And you know," he went on, groping shame-facedly amongst his feelings,
+"I did not engage that young fellow.  His people had some
+interest with my owners.  I was in a way forced to take him on.
+He looked very smart, very gentlemanly, and all that.
+But do you know--I never liked him, somehow.  I am a plain man.
+You see, he wasn't exactly the sort for the chief mate of a ship
+like the Sephora."
+
+I had become so connected in thoughts and impressions with the secret
+sharer of my cabin that I felt as if I, personally, were being
+given to understand that I, too, was not the sort that would
+have done for the chief mate of a ship like the Sephora.
+I had no doubt of it in my mind.
+
+"Not at all the style of man.  You understand," he insisted,
+superfluously, looking hard at me.
+
+I smiled urbanely.  He seemed at a loss for a while.
+
+"I suppose I must report a suicide."
+
+"Beg pardon?"
+
+"Suicide!  That's what I'll have to write to my owners directly I get in."
+
+"Unless you manage to recover him before tomorrow,"
+I assented, dispassionately.  . . . "I mean, alive."
+
+He mumbled something which I really did not catch, and I turned my ear
+to him in a puzzled manner.  He fairly bawled:
+
+"The land--I say, the mainland is at least seven miles off my anchorage."
+
+"About that."
+
+My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of any
+sort of pronounced interest, began to arouse his distrust.
+But except for the felicitous pretense of deafness I had not tried
+to pretend anything.  I had felt utterly incapable of playing
+the part of ignorance properly, and therefore was afraid to try.
+It is also certain that he had brought some ready-made suspicions
+with him, and that he viewed my politeness as a strange and
+unnatural phenomenon.  And yet how else could I have received him?
+Not heartily!  That was impossible for psychological reasons,
+which I need not state here.  My only object was to keep off
+his inquiries.  Surlily?  Yes, but surliness might have provoked
+a point-blank question.  From its novelty to him and from its nature,
+punctilious courtesy was the manner best calculated to restrain the man.
+But there was the danger of his breaking through my defense bluntly.
+I could not, I think, have met him by a direct lie, also for psychological
+(not moral) reasons.  If he had only known how afraid I was of
+his putting my feeling of identity with the other to the test!
+But, strangely enough--(I thought of it only afterwards)--
+I believe that he was not a little disconcerted by the reverse
+side of that weird situation, by something in me that reminded
+him of the man he was seeking--suggested a mysterious similitude
+to the young fellow he had distrusted and disliked from the first.
+
+However that might have been, the silence was not very prolonged.
+He took another oblique step.
+
+"I reckon I had no more than a two-mile pull to your ship.
+Not a bit more."
+
+"And quite enough, too, in this awful heat," I said.
+
+Another pause full of mistrust followed.  Necessity, they say, is mother
+of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions.
+And I was afraid he would ask me point-blank for news of my other self.
+
+"Nice little saloon, isn't it?"  I remarked, as if noticing for the first
+time the way his eyes roamed from one closed door to the other.
+"And very well fitted out, too.  Here, for instance," I continued,
+reaching over the back of my seat negligently and flinging the door open,
+"is my bathroom."
+
+He made an eager movement, but hardly gave it a glance.
+I got up, shut the door of the bathroom, and invited him to have
+a look round, as if I were very proud of my accomodation.
+He had to rise and be shown round, but he went through the business
+without any raptures whatever.
+
+"And now we'll have a look at my stateroom," I declared,
+in a voice as loud as I dared to make it, crossing the cabin
+to the starboard side with purposely heavy steps.
+
+He followed me in and gazed around.  My intelligent double had vanished.
+I played my part.
+
+"Very convenient--isn't it?"
+
+Very nice.  Very comf . . ." He didn't finish and went out
+brusquely as if to escape from some unrighteous wiles of mine.
+But it was not to be.  I had been too frightened not to feel vengeful;
+I felt I had him on the run, and I meant to keep him on the run.
+My polite insistence must have had something menacing in it,
+because he gave in suddenly.  And I did not let him off a single item;
+mate's room, pantry, storerooms, the very sail locker which was
+also under the poop--he had to look into them all.  When at last I
+showed him out on the quarter-deck he drew a long, spiritless sigh,
+and mumbled dismally that he must really be going back to his ship now.
+I desired my mate, who had joined us, to see to the captain's boat.
+
+The man of whiskers gave a blast on the whistle which he used
+to wear hanging round his neck, and yelled, "Sephora's away!"
+My double down there in my cabin must have heard, and certainly
+could not feel more relieved than I. Four fellows came running
+out from somewhere forward and went over the side, while my
+own men, appearing on deck too, lined the rail.  I escorted
+my visitor to the gangway ceremoniously, and nearly overdid it.
+He was a tenacious beast.  On the very ladder he lingered,
+and in that unique, guiltily conscientious manner of sticking
+to the point:
+
+"I say . . . you . . . you don't think that--"
+
+I covered his voice loudly:
+
+"Certainly not.  . . . I am delighted.  Good-by."
+
+I had an idea of what he meant to say, and just saved myself
+by the privilege of defective hearing.  He was too shaken
+generally to insist, but my mate, close witness of that parting,
+looked mystified and his face took on a thoughtful cast.
+As I did not want to appear as if I wished to avoid all
+communication with my officers, he had the opportunity
+to address me.
+
+"Seems a very nice man.  His boat's crew told our chaps a very
+extraordinary story, if what I am told by the steward is true.
+I suppose you had it from the captain, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  I had a story from the captain."
+
+"A very horrible affair--isn't it, sir?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Beats all these tales we hear about murders in Yankee ships."
+
+"I don't think it beats them.  I don't think it resembles them
+in the least."
+
+"Bless my soul--you don't say so!  But of course I've no
+acquaintance whatever with American ships, not I so I couldn't
+go against your knowledge.  It's horrible enough for me.
+. . . But the queerest part is that those fellows seemed to have
+some idea the man was hidden aboard here.  They had really.
+Did you ever hear of such a thing?"
+
+"Preposterous--isn't it?"
+
+We were walking to and fro athwart the quarter-deck. No one of the crew
+forward could be seen (the day was Sunday), and the mate pursued:
+
+"There was some little dispute about it.  Our chaps took offense.
+`As if we would harbor a thing like that,' they said.
+`Wouldn't you like to look for him in our coal-hole?' Quite a tiff.
+But they made it up in the end.  I suppose he did drown himself.
+Don't you, sir?"
+
+"I don't suppose anything."
+
+"You have no doubt in the matter, sir?"
+
+"None whatever."
+
+I left him suddenly.  I felt I was producing a bad impression,
+but with my double down there it was most trying to be on deck.  And it
+was almost as trying to be below.  Altogether a nerve-trying situation.
+But on the whole I felt less torn in two when I was with him.
+There was no one in the whole ship whom I dared take into
+my confidence.  Since the hands had got to know his story,
+it would have been impossible to pass him off for anyone else,
+and an accidental discovery was to be dreaded now more than ever.
+. . .
+
+The steward being engaged in laying the table for dinner,
+we could talk only with our eyes when I first went down.
+Later in the afternoon we had a cautious try at whispering.
+The Sunday quietness of the ship was against us; the stillness
+of air and water around her was against us; the elements,
+the men were against us--everything was against us in our
+secret partnership; time itself--for this could not go on forever.
+The very trust in Providence was, I suppose, denied to his guilt.
+Shall I confess that this thought cast me down very much?
+And as to the chapter of accidents which counts for so much
+in the book of success, I could only hope that it was closed.
+For what favorable accident could be expected?
+
+"Did you hear everything?" were my first words as soon as we took
+up our position side by side, leaning over my bed place.
+
+He had.  And the proof of it was his earnest whisper, "The man told you
+he hardly dared to give the order."
+
+I understood the reference to be to that saving foresail.
+
+"Yes.  He was afraid of it being lost in the setting."
+
+"I assure you he never gave the order.  He may think he did,
+but he never gave it.  He stood there with me on the break of the poop
+after the main topsail blew away, and whimpered about our last hope--
+positively whimpered about it and nothing else--and the night coming on!
+To hear one's skipper go on like that in such weather was enough
+to drive any fellow out of his mind.  It worked me up into a sort
+of desperation.  I just took it into my own hands and went
+away from him, boiling, and--But what's the use telling you?
+YOU know! . . . Do you think that if I had not been pretty fierce
+with them I should have got the men to do anything?  Not It!
+The bo's'n perhaps?  Perhaps!  It wasn't a heavy sea--it was a sea
+gone mad!  I suppose the end of the world will be something like that;
+and a man may have the heart to see it coming once and be done with it--
+but to have to face it day after day--I don't blame anybody.
+I was precious little better than the rest.  Only--I was an officer
+of that old coal wagon, anyhow--"
+
+"I quite understand," I conveyed that sincere assurance into his ear.
+He was out of breath with whispering; I could hear him pant slightly.
+It was all very simple.  The same strung-up force which had given twenty-four
+men a chance, at least, for their lives, had, in a sort of recoil,
+crushed an unworthy mutinous existence.
+
+But I had no leisure to weigh the merits of the matter--
+footsteps in the saloon, a heavy knock.  "There's enough wind
+to get under way with, sir."  Here was the call of a new claim
+upon my thoughts and even upon my feelings.
+
+"Turn the hands up," I cried through the door.  "I'll be on deck directly."
+
+I was going out to make the acquaintance of my ship.
+Before I left the cabin our eyes met--the eyes of the only
+two strangers on board.  I pointed to the recessed part where
+the little campstool awaited him and laid my finger on my lips.
+He made a gesture--somewhat vague--a little mysterious,
+accompanied by a faint smile, as if of regret.
+
+This is not the place to enlarge upon the sensations of a man
+who feels for the first time a ship move under his feet to his
+own independent word.  In my case they were not unalloyed.
+I was not wholly alone with my command; for there was that stranger
+in my cabin.  Or rather, I was not completely and wholly with her.
+Part of me was absent.  That mental feeling of being in two
+places at once affected me physically as if the mood of secrecy
+had penetrated my very soul.  Before an hour had elapsed since
+the ship had begun to move, having occasion to ask the mate
+(he stood by my side) to take a compass bearing of the pagoda,
+I caught myself reaching up to his ear in whispers.
+I say I caught myself, but enough had escaped to startle the man.
+I can't describe it otherwise than by saying that he shied.
+A grave, preoccupied manner, as though he were in possession
+of some perplexing intelligence, did not leave him henceforth.
+A little later I moved away from the rail to look at the compass
+with such a stealthy gait that the helmsman noticed it--
+and I could not help noticing the unusual roundness of his eyes.
+These are trifling instances, though it's to no commander's
+advantage to be suspected of ludicrous eccentricities.
+But I was also more seriously affected.  There are to a seaman
+certain words, gestures, that should in given conditions come
+as naturally, as instinctively as the winking of a menaced eye.
+A certain order should spring on to his lips without thinking;
+a certain sign should get itself made, so to speak,
+without reflection.  But all unconscious alertness had abandoned me.
+I had to make an effort of will to recall myself back
+(from the cabin) to the conditions of the moment.
+I felt that I was appearing an irresolute commander to those
+people who were watching me more or less critically.
+
+And, besides, there were the scares.  On the second day out,
+for instance, coming off the deck in the afternoon (I had straw
+slippers on my bare feet) I stopped at the open pantry door and spoke
+to the steward.  He was doing something there with his back to me.
+At the sound of my voice he nearly jumped out of his skin,
+as the saying is, and incidentally broke a cup.
+
+"What on earth's the matter with you?"  I asked, astonished.
+
+He was extremely confused.  "Beg your pardon, sir.  I made sure
+you were in your cabin."
+
+"You see I wasn't."
+
+"No, sir.  I could have sworn I had heard you moving in there not
+a moment ago.  It's most extraordinary . . . very sorry, sir."
+
+I passed on with an inward shudder.  I was so identified
+with my secret double that I did not even mention
+the fact in those scanty, fearful whispers we exchanged.
+I suppose he had made some slight noise of some kind or other.
+It would have been miraculous if he hadn't at one time or another.
+And yet, haggard as he appeared, he looked always perfectly
+self-controlled, more than calm--almost invulnerable.
+On my suggestion he remained almost entirely in
+the bathroom, which, upon the whole, was the safest place.
+There could be really no shadow of an excuse for anyone ever
+wanting to go in there, once the steward had done with it.
+It was a very tiny place.  Sometimes he reclined on
+the floor, his legs bent, his head sustained on one elbow.
+At others I would find him on the campstool, sitting in his gray
+sleeping suit and with his cropped dark hair like a patient,
+unmoved convict.  At night I would smuggle him into my bed place,
+and we would whisper together, with the regular footfalls of
+the officer of the watch passing and repassing over our heads.
+It was an infinitely miserable time.  It was lucky that some
+tins of fine preserves were stowed in a locker in my stateroom;
+hard bread I could always get hold of; and so he lived on stewed
+chicken, PATE DE FOIE GRAS, asparagus, cooked oysters, sardines--
+on all sorts of abominable sham delicacies out of tins.
+My early-morning coffee he always drank; and it was all I
+dared do for him in that respect.
+
+Every day there was the horrible maneuvering to go through so that my room
+and then the bathroom should be done in the usual way.  I came to hate
+the sight of the steward, to abhor the voice of that harmless man.
+I felt that it was he who would bring on the disaster of discovery.
+It hung like a sword over our heads.
+
+The fourth day out, I think (we were then working down the east side
+of the Gulf of Siam, tack for tack, in light winds and smooth water)--
+the fourth day, I say, of this miserable juggling with the unavoidable,
+as we sat at our evening meal, that man, whose slightest movement
+I dreaded, after putting down the dishes ran up on deck busily.
+This could not be dangerous.  Presently he came down again;
+and then it appeared that he had remembered a coat of mine
+which I had thrown over a rail to dry after having been wetted
+in a shower which had passed over the ship in the afternoon.
+Sitting stolidly at the head of the table I became terrified at
+the sight of the garment on his arm.  Of course he made for my door.
+There was no time to lose.
+
+"Steward," I thundered.  My nerves were so shaken that I
+could not govern my voice and conceal my agitation.
+This was the sort of thing that made my terrifically
+whiskered mate tap his forehead with his forefinger.
+I had detected him using that gesture while talking on deck
+with a confidential air to the carpenter.  It was too far
+to hear a word, but I had no doubt that this pantomime could
+only refer to the strange new captain.
+
+"Yes, sir," the pale-faced steward turned resignedly to me.
+It was this maddening course of being shouted at, checked without
+rhyme or reason, arbitrarily chased out of my cabin, suddenly called
+into it, sent flying out of his pantry on incomprehensible errands,
+that accounted for the growing wretchedness of his expression.
+
+"Where are you going with that coat?"
+
+"To your room, sir."
+
+"Is there another shower coming?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, sir.  Shall I go up again and see, sir?"
+
+"No! never mind."
+
+My object was attained, as of course my other self in there would have heard
+everything that passed.  During this interlude my two officers never raised
+their eyes off their respective plates; but the lip of that confounded cub,
+the second mate, quivered visibly.
+
+I expected the steward to hook my coat on and come out at once.
+He was very slow about it; but I dominated my nervousness
+sufficiently not to shout after him.  Suddenly I became aware
+(it could be heard plainly enough) that the fellow for some reason
+or other was opening the door of the bathroom.  It was the end.
+The place was literally not big enough to swing a cat in.
+My voice died in my throat and I went stony all over.
+I expected to hear a yell of surprise and terror, and made
+a movement, but had not the strength to get on my legs.
+Everything remained still.  Had my second self taken the poor
+wretch by the throat?  I don't know what I could have done
+next moment if I had not seen the steward come out of my room,
+close the door, and then stand quietly by the sideboard.
+
+"Saved," I thought.  "But, no!  Lost!  Gone!  He was gone!"
+
+I laid my knife and fork down and leaned back in my chair.  My head swam.
+After a while, when sufficiently recovered to speak in a steady voice,
+I instructed my mate to put the ship round at eight o'clock himself.
+
+"I won't come on deck," I went on.  "I think I'll turn in, and unless
+the wind shifts I don't want to be disturbed before midnight.
+I feel a bit seedy."
+
+"You did look middling bad a little while ago," the chief mate remarked
+without showing any great concern.
+
+They both went out, and I stared at the steward clearing the table.
+There was nothing to be read on that wretched man's face.
+But why did he avoid my eyes, I asked myself.  Then I thought I
+should like to hear the sound of his voice.
+
+"Steward!"
+
+"Sir!"  Startled as usual.
+
+"Where did you hang up that coat?"
+
+"In the bathroom, sir."  The usual anxious tone.
+"It's not quite dry yet, sir."
+
+For some time longer I sat in the cuddy.  Had my double vanished
+as he had come?  But of his coming there was an explanation,
+whereas his disappearance would be inexplicable.  . . . I went
+slowly into my dark room, shut the door, lighted the lamp,
+and for a time dared not turn round.  When at last I did I
+saw him standing bolt-upright in the narrow recessed part.
+It would not be true to say I had a shock, but an irresistible
+doubt of his bodily existence flitted through my mind.
+Can it be, I asked myself, that he is not visible to other eyes
+than mine?  It was like being haunted.  Motionless, with a
+grave face, he raised his hands slightly at me in a gesture
+which meant clearly, "Heavens! what a narrow escape!"
+Narrow indeed.  I think I had come creeping quietly as near
+insanity as any man who has not actually gone over the border.
+That gesture restrained me, so to speak.
+
+The mate with the terrific whiskers was now putting the ship
+on the other tack.  In the moment of profound silence
+which follows upon the hands going to their stations I heard
+on the poop his raised voice:  "Hard alee!" and the distant
+shout of the order repeated on the main-deck. The sails,
+in that light breeze, made but a faint fluttering noise.
+It ceased.  The ship was coming round slowly:  I held my breath
+in the renewed stillness of expectation; one wouldn't have
+thought that there was a single living soul on her decks.
+A sudden brisk shout, "Mainsail haul!" broke the spell,
+and in the noisy cries and rush overhead of the men running away
+with the main brace we two, down in my cabin, came together
+in our usual position by the bed place.
+
+He did not wait for my question.  "I heard him fumbling here and just
+managed to squat myself down in the bath," he whispered to me.
+"The fellow only opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat up.
+All the same--"
+
+"I never thought of that," I whispered back, even more appalled
+than before at the closeness of the shave, and marveling at
+that something unyielding in his character which was carrying
+him through so finely.  There was no agitation in his whisper.
+Whoever was being driven distracted, it was not he.  He was sane.
+And the proof of his sanity was continued when he took up
+the whispering again.
+
+"It would never do for me to come to life again."
+
+It was something that a ghost might have said.  But what he was alluding
+to was his old captain's reluctant admission of the theory of suicide.
+It would obviously serve his turn--if I had understood at all the view
+which seemed to govern the unalterable purpose of his action.
+
+"You must maroon me as soon as ever you can get amongst these islands
+off the Cambodge shore," he went on.
+
+"Maroon you!  We are not living in a boy's adventure tale," I protested.
+His scornful whispering took me up.
+
+"We aren't indeed!  There's nothing of a boy's tale in this.
+But there's nothing else for it.  I want no more.
+You don't suppose I am afraid of what can be done to me?
+Prison or gallows or whatever they may please.
+But you don't see me coming back to explain such things
+to an old fellow in a wig and twelve respectable tradesmen,
+do you?  What can they know whether I am guilty or not--
+or of WHAT I am guilty, either?  That's my affair.
+What does the Bible say?  `Driven off the face of the earth.'
+Very well, I am off the face of the earth now.  As I came
+at night so I shall go."
+
+"Impossible!"  I murmured.  "You can't."
+
+"Can't? . . . Not naked like a soul on the Day of Judgment.
+I shall freeze on to this sleeping suit.  The Last Day is not yet--
+and . . . you have understood thoroughly.  Didn't you?"
+
+I felt suddenly ashamed of myself.  I may say truly that I understood--
+and my hesitation in letting that man swim away from my ship's side
+had been a mere sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice.
+
+"It can't be done now till next night," I breathed out.
+"The ship is on the off-shore tack and the wind may fail us."
+
+"As long as I know that you understand," he whispered.
+"But of course you do.  It's a great satisfaction to have got
+somebody to understand.  You seem to have been there on purpose."
+And in the same whisper, as if we two whenever we talked had to say
+things to each other which were not fit for the world to hear,
+he added, "It's very wonderful."
+
+We remained side by side talking in our secret way--
+but sometimes silent or just exchanging a whispered word or two
+at long intervals.  And as usual he stared through the port.
+A breath of wind came now and again into our faces.
+The ship might have been moored in dock, so gently and on an
+even keel she slipped through the water, that did not murmur
+even at our passage, shadowy and silent like a phantom sea.
+
+At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's great
+surprise put the ship round on the other tack.
+His terrible whiskers flitted round me in silent criticism.
+I certainly should not have done it if it had been only a question
+of getting out of that sleepy gulf as quickly as possible.
+I believe he told the second mate, who relieved him,
+that it was a great want of judgment.  The other only yawned.
+That intolerable cub shuffled about so sleepily and lolled
+against the rails in such a slack, improper fashion that I
+came down on him sharply.
+
+"Aren't you properly awake yet?"
+
+"Yes, sir!  I am awake."
+
+"Well, then, be good enough to hold yourself as if you were.
+And keep a lookout.  If there's any current we'll be closing
+with some islands before daylight."
+
+The east side of the gulf is fringed with islands, some solitary,
+others in groups.  One the blue background of the high coast they
+seem to float on silvery patches of calm water, arid and gray,
+or dark green and rounded like clumps of evergreen bushes,
+with the larger ones, a mile or two long, showing the outlines
+of ridges, ribs of gray rock under the dark mantle of matted leafage.
+Unknown to trade, to travel, almost to geography, the manner
+of life they harbor is an unsolved secret.  There must be villages--
+settlements of fishermen at least--on the largest of them, and some
+communication with the world is probably kept up by native craft.
+But all that forenoon, as we headed for them, fanned along by
+the faintest of breezes, I saw no sign of man or canoe in the field
+of the telescope I kept on pointing at the scattered group.
+
+At noon I have no orders for a change of course, and the mate's
+whiskers became much concerned and seemed to be offering themselves
+unduly to my notice.  At last I said:
+
+"I am going to stand right in.  Quite in--as far as I can take her."
+
+The stare of extreme surprise imparted an air of ferocity also to his eyes,
+and he looked truly terrific for a moment.
+
+"We're not doing well in the middle of the gulf," I continued, casually.
+"I am going to look for the land breezes tonight."
+
+"Bless my soul!  Do you mean, sir, in the dark amongst the lot of all them
+islands and reefs and shoals?"
+
+"Well--if there are any regular land breezes at all on this coast
+one must get close inshore to find them, mustn't one?"
+
+"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed again under his breath.
+All that afternoon he wore a dreamy, contemplative appearance
+which in him was a mark of perplexity.  After dinner I
+went into my stateroom as if I meant to take some rest.
+There we two bent our dark heads over a half-unrolled chart
+lying on my bed.
+
+"There," I said.  "It's got to be Koh-ring. I've been looking
+at it ever since sunrise.  It has got two hills and a low point.
+It must be inhabited.  And on the coast opposite there is what looks
+like the mouth of a biggish river--with some towns, no doubt, not far up.
+It's the best chance for you that I can see."
+
+"Anything.  Koh-ring let it be."
+
+He looked thoughtfully at the chart as if surveying chances and
+distances from a lofty height--and following with his eyes his own
+figure wandering on the blank land of Cochin-China, and then passing
+off that piece of paper clean out of sight into uncharted regions.
+And it was as if the ship had two captains to plan her course for her.
+I had been so worried and restless running up and down that I
+had not had the patience to dress that day.  I had remained
+in my sleeping suit, with straw slippers and a soft floppy hat.
+The closeness of the heat in the gulf had been most oppressive,
+and the crew were used to seeing me wandering in that airy attire.
+
+"She will clear the south point as she heads now," I whispered into his ear.
+"Goodness only knows when, though, but certainly after dark.
+I'll edge her in to half a mile, as far as I may be able to judge
+in the dark--"
+
+"Be careful," he murmured, warningly--and I realized suddenly
+that all my future, the only future for which I was fit,
+would perhaps go irretrievably to pieces in any mishap
+to my first command.
+
+I could not stop a moment longer in the room.  I motioned him to get out
+of sight and made my way on the poop.  That unplayful cub had the watch.
+I walked up and down for a while thinking things out, then beckoned him over.
+
+"Send a couple of hands to open the two quarter-deck ports,"
+I said, mildly.
+
+He actually had the impudence, or else so forgot himself in his wonder
+at such an incomprehensible order, as to repeat:
+
+"Open the quarter-deck ports!  What for, sir?"
+
+"The only reason you need concern yourself about is because I tell you
+to do so.  Have them open wide and fastened properly."
+
+He reddened and went off, but I believe made some jeering remark
+to the carpenter as to the sensible practice of ventilating
+a ship's quarter-deck. I know he popped into the mate's cabin
+to impart the fact to him because the whiskers came on deck,
+as it were by chance, and stole glances at me from below--
+for signs of lunacy or drunkenness, I suppose.
+
+A little before supper, feeling more restless than ever, I rejoined,
+for a moment, my second self.  And to find him sitting so quietly
+was surprising, like something against nature, inhuman.
+
+I developed my plan in a hurried whisper.
+
+"I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her round.
+I will presently find means to smuggle you out of here
+into the sail locker, which communicates with the lobby.
+But there is an opening, a sort of square for hauling the sails out,
+which gives straight on the quarter-deck and which is never
+closed in fine weather, so as to give air to the sails.
+When the ship's way is deadened in stays and all the hands
+are aft at the main braces you will have a clear road to slip
+out and get overboard through the open quarter-deck port.
+I've had them both fastened up.  Use a rope's end to lower
+yourself into the water so as to avoid a splash--you know.
+It could be heard and cause some beastly complication."
+
+He kept silent for a while, then whispered, "I understand."
+
+"I won't be there to see you go," I began with an effort.
+"The rest . . . I only hope I have understood, too."
+
+"You have.  From first to last"--and for the first time there
+seemed to be a faltering, something strained in his whisper.
+He caught hold of my arm, but the ringing of the supper bell
+made me start.  He didn't though; he only released his grip.
+
+After supper I didn't come below again till well past eight
+o'clock. The faint, steady breeze was loaded with dew; and the wet,
+darkened sails held all there was of propelling power in it.
+The night, clear and starry, sparkled darkly, and the opaque,
+lightless patches shifting slowly against the low stars
+were the drifting islets.  On the port bow there was a big
+one more distant and shadowily imposing by the great space
+of sky it eclipsed.
+
+On opening the door I had a back view of my very own self looking at a chart.
+He had come out of the recess and was standing near the table.
+
+"Quite dark enough," I whispered.
+
+He stepped back and leaned against my bed with a level, quiet glance.
+I sat on the couch.  We had nothing to say to each other.
+Over our heads the officer of the watch moved here and there.
+Then I heard him move quickly.  I knew what that meant.
+He was making for the companion; and presently his voice was
+outside my door.
+
+"We are drawing in pretty fast, sir.  Land looks rather close."
+
+"Very well," I answered.  "I am coming on deck directly."
+
+I waited till he was gone out of the cuddy, then rose.  My double moved too.
+The time had come to exchange our last whispers, for neither of us was ever
+to hear each other's natural voice.
+
+"Look here!"  I opened a drawer and took out three sovereigns.
+"Take this anyhow.  I've got six and I'd give you the lot,
+only I must keep a little money to buy some fruit and vegetables
+for the crew from native boats as we go through Sunda Straits."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Take it," I urged him, whispering desperately.
+"No one can tell what--"
+
+He smiled and slapped meaningly the only pocket of the sleeping jacket.
+It was not safe, certainly.  But I produced a large old silk handkerchief
+of mine, and tying the three pieces of gold in a corner, pressed it on him.
+He was touched, I supposed, because he took it at last and tied it quickly
+round his waist under the jacket, on his bare skin.
+
+Our eyes met; several seconds elapsed, till, our glances
+still mingled, I extended my hand and turned the lamp out.
+Then I passed through the cuddy, leaving the door of my room wide open.
+. . . "Steward!"
+
+He was still lingering in the pantry in the greatness of his zeal,
+giving a rub-up to a plated cruet stand the last thing before going to bed.
+Being careful not to wake up the mate, whose room was opposite, I spoke
+in an undertone.
+
+He looked round anxiously.  "Sir!"
+
+"Can you get me a little hot water from the galley?"
+
+"I am afraid, sir, the galley fire's been out for some time now."
+
+"Go and see."
+
+He flew up the stairs.
+
+"Now," I whispered, loudly, into the saloon--too loudly,
+perhaps, but I was afraid I couldn't make a sound.
+He was by my side in an instant--the double captain slipped past
+the stairs--through a tiny dark passage . . . a sliding door.
+We were in the sail locker, scrambling on our knees over the sails.
+A sudden thought struck me.  I saw myself wandering
+barefooted, bareheaded, the sun beating on my dark poll.
+I snatched off my floppy hat and tried hurriedly in the dark
+to ram it on my other self.  He dodged and fended off silently.
+I wonder what he thought had come to me before he understood
+and suddenly desisted.  Our hands met gropingly,
+lingered united in a steady, motionless clasp for a second.
+. . . No word was breathed by either of us when they separated.
+
+I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the steward returned.
+
+"Sorry, sir.  Kettle barely warm.  Shall I light the spirit lamp?"
+
+"Never mind."
+
+I came out on deck slowly.  It was now a matter of conscience
+to shave the land as close as possible--for now he must go overboard
+whenever the ship was put in stays.  Must!  There could be no going
+back for him.  After a moment I walked over to leeward and my
+heart flew into my mouth at the nearness of the land on the bow.
+Under any other circumstances I would not have held on a minute longer.
+The second mate had followed me anxiously.
+
+I looked on till I felt I could command my voice.
+
+"She will weather," I said then in a quiet tone.
+
+"Are you going to try that, sir?" he stammered out incredulously.
+
+I took no notice of him and raised my tone just enough to be heard
+by the helmsman.
+
+"Keep her good full."
+
+"Good full, sir."
+
+The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world was silent.
+The strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and denser
+was too much for me.  I had shut my eyes--because the ship must go closer.
+She must!  The stillness was intolerable.  Were we standing still?
+
+When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a thump.
+The black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over
+the ship like a towering fragment of everlasting night.
+On that enormous mass of blackness there was not a gleam to
+be seen, not a sound to be heard.  It was gliding irresistibly
+towards us and yet seemed already within reach of the hand.
+I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped in the waist,
+gazing in awed silence.
+
+"Are you going on, sir?" inquired an unsteady voice at my elbow.
+
+I ignored it.  I had to go on.
+
+"Keep her full.  Don't check her way.  That won't do now,"
+I said warningly.
+
+"I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman answered me,
+in strange, quavering tones.
+
+Was she close enough?  Already she was, I won't say in the shadow of the land,
+but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone too
+close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.
+
+"Give the mate a call," I said to the young man who stood at my elbow
+as still as death.  "And turn all hands up."
+
+My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from the height of the land.
+Several voices cried out together:  "We are all on deck, sir."
+
+Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding closer,
+towering higher, without a light, without a sound.
+Such a hush had fallen on the ship that she might have been a bark
+of the dead floating in slowly under the very gate of Erebus.
+
+"My God!  Where are we?"
+
+It was the mate moaning at my elbow.  He was thunderstruck,
+and as it were deprived of the moral support of his whiskers.
+He clapped his hands and absolutely cried out, "Lost!"
+
+"Be quiet," I said, sternly.
+
+He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture of his despair.
+"What are we doing here?"
+
+"Looking for the land wind."
+
+He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me recklessly.
+
+"She will never get out.  You have done it, sir.  I knew it'd end in something
+like this.  She will never weather, and you are too close now to stay.
+She'll drift ashore before she's round.  O my God!"
+
+I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his poor devoted head,
+and shook it violently.
+
+"She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear himself away.
+
+"Is she? . . . Keep good full there!"
+
+"Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a frightened, thin, childlike voice.
+
+I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking it.  "Ready about,
+do you hear?  You go forward"--shake--"and stop there"--shake--"and hold
+your noise"--shake--" and see these head-sheets properly overhauled"--
+shake, shake--shake.
+
+And all the time I dared not look towards the land lest my heart
+should fail me.  I released my grip at last and he ran forward
+as if fleeing for dear life.
+
+I wondered what my double there in the sail locker thought of
+this commotion.  He was able to hear everything--and perhaps he was able
+to understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close--no less.
+My first order "Hard alee!" re-echoed ominously under the towering
+shadow of Koh-ring as if I had shouted in a mountain gorge.
+And then I watched the land intently.  In that smooth water
+and light wind it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to. No!
+I could not feel her.  And my second self was making now ready
+to ship out and lower himself overboard.  Perhaps he was gone
+already . . . ?
+
+The great black mass brooding over our very mastheads began to pivot away
+from the ship's side silently.  And now I forgot the secret stranger ready
+to depart, and remembered only that I was a total stranger to the ship.
+I did not know her.  Would she do it?  How was she to be handled?
+
+I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly.  She was perhaps stopped,
+and her very fate hung in the balance, with the black mass
+of Koh-ring like the gate of the everlasting night towering over
+her taffrail.  What would she do now?  Had she way on her yet?
+I stepped to the side swiftly, and on the shadowy water I could see
+nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash revealing the glassy
+smoothness of the sleeping surface.  It was impossible to tell--
+and I had not learned yet the feel of my ship.  Was she moving?
+What I needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper,
+which I could throw overboard and watch.  I had nothing on me.
+To run down for it I didn't dare.  There was no time.
+All at once my strained, yearning stare distinguished
+a white object floating within a yard of the ship's side.
+White on the black water.  A phosphorescent flash passed under it.
+What was that thing? . . . I recognized my own floppy hat.
+It must have fallen off his head . . . and he didn't bother.
+Now I had what I wanted--the saving mark for my eyes.
+But I hardly thought of my other self, now gone from the ship,
+to be hidden forever from all friendly faces, to be a fugitive
+and a vagabond on the earth, with no brand of the curse on his
+sane forehead to stay a slaying hand . . . too proud to explain.
+
+And I watched the hat--the expression of my sudden pity for his mere flesh.
+It had been meant to save his homeless head from the dangers of the sun.
+And now--behold--it was saving the ship, by serving me for a mark to help
+out the ignorance of my strangeness.  Ha!  It was drifting forward,
+warning me just in time that the ship had gathered sternaway.
+
+"Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the seaman standing still
+like a statue.
+
+The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light as he jumped
+round to the other side and spun round the wheel.
+
+I walked to the break of the poop.  On the over-shadowed deck
+all hands stood by the forebraces waiting for my order.
+The stars ahead seemed to be gliding from right to left.
+And all was so still in the world that I heard the quiet remark,
+"She's round," passed in a tone of intense relief between two seamen.
+
+"Let go and haul."
+
+The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst cheery cries.
+And now the frightful whiskers made themselves heard giving various orders.
+Already the ship was drawing ahead.  And I was alone with her.
+Nothing! no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow
+on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion
+of a seaman with his first command.
+
+Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, on the very edge
+of a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway
+of Erebus--yes, I was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my
+white hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer
+of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he were my second self,
+had lowered himself into the water to take his punishment:
+a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny.
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Secret Sharer
+
+