summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/451-h/451-h.htm
blob: 85d9653cfef0307e7048109efee62820e1f6dc3a (plain) 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE html
   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>
      The Shadow-Line, by Joseph Conrad
    </title>
    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">

    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
               text-align: right;}
    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}

</style>
  </head>
  <body>
<pre xml:space="preserve">

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadow-Line, by Joseph Conrad

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The Shadow-Line
       A Confession

Author: Joseph Conrad

Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #451]
Last Updated: September 9, 2016

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHADOW-LINE ***




Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger





</pre>

    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h1>
      THE SHADOW-LINE
    </h1>
    <h2>
      A CONFESSION
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Joseph Conrad
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h3>
      &ldquo;Worthy of my undying regard&rdquo;
     </h3>
    <p>
      To Borys And All Others Who,<br /> Like Himself, Have Crossed In Early
      Youth<br /> The Shadow-Line Of Their Generation With Love<br /> <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <p>
      &mdash;<i>D&rsquo;autre fois, calme plat, grand miroir De mon desespoir</i>.
      &mdash;BAUDELAIRE
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      Contents
    </h2>
    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
      <tr>
        <td>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_PART1"> PART ONE </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;II </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;III </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART TWO </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;IV </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;V </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;VI </a>
          </p>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_PART1" id="link2H_PART1">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      PART ONE
    </h2>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      I
    </h2>
    <p>
      Only the young have such moments. I don&rsquo;t mean the very young. No. The
      very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of
      early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity
      of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.
    </p>
    <p>
      One closes behind one the little gate of mere boyishness&mdash;and enters
      an enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise. Every turn of the
      path has its seduction. And it isn&rsquo;t because it is an undiscovered
      country. One knows well enough that all mankind had streamed that way. It
      is the charm of universal experience from which one expects an uncommon or
      personal sensation&mdash;a bit of one&rsquo;s own.
    </p>
    <p>
      One goes on recognizing the landmarks of the predecessors, excited,
      amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together&mdash;the kicks
      and the half-pence, as the saying is&mdash;the picturesque common lot that
      holds so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky.
      Yes. One goes on. And the time, too, goes on&mdash;till one perceives
      ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must
      be left behind.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is the period of life in which such moments of which I have spoken
      are likely to come. What moments? Why, the moments of boredom, of
      weariness, of dissatisfaction. Rash moments. I mean moments when the still
      young are inclined to commit rash actions, such as getting married
      suddenly or else throwing up a job for no reason.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is not a marriage story. It wasn&rsquo;t so bad as that with me. My action,
      rash as it was, had more the character of divorce&mdash;almost of
      desertion. For no reason on which a sensible person could put a finger I
      threw up my job&mdash;chucked my berth&mdash;left the ship of which the
      worst that could be said was that she was a steamship and therefore,
      perhaps, not entitled to that blind loyalty which. . . . However, it&rsquo;s no
      use trying to put a gloss on what even at the time I myself half suspected
      to be a caprice.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was in an Eastern port. She was an Eastern ship, inasmuch as then she
      belonged to that port. She traded among dark islands on a blue
      reef-scarred sea, with the Red Ensign over the taffrail and at her
      masthead a house-flag, also red, but with a green border and with a white
      crescent in it. For an Arab owned her, and a Syed at that. Hence the green
      border on the flag. He was the head of a great House of Straits Arabs, but
      as loyal a subject of the complex British Empire as you could find east of
      the Suez Canal. World politics did not trouble him at all, but he had a
      great occult power amongst his own people.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was all one to us who owned the ship. He had to employ white men in the
      shipping part of his business, and many of those he so employed had never
      set eyes on him from the first to the last day. I myself saw him but once,
      quite accidentally on a wharf&mdash;an old, dark little man blind in one
      eye, in a snowy robe and yellow slippers. He was having his hand severely
      kissed by a crowd of Malay pilgrims to whom he had done some favour, in
      the way of food and money. His alms-giving, I have heard, was most
      extensive, covering almost the whole Archipelago. For isn&rsquo;t it said that
      &ldquo;The charitable man is the friend of Allah&rdquo;?
    </p>
    <p>
      Excellent (and picturesque) Arab owner, about whom one needed not to
      trouble one&rsquo;s head, a most excellent Scottish ship&mdash;for she was that
      from the keep up&mdash;excellent sea-boat, easy to keep clean, most handy
      in every way, and if it had not been for her internal propulsion, worthy
      of any man&rsquo;s love, I cherish to this day a profound respect for her
      memory. As to the kind of trade she was engaged in and the character of my
      shipmates, I could not have been happier if I had had the life and the men
      made to my order by a benevolent Enchanter.
    </p>
    <p>
      And suddenly I left all this. I left it in that, to us, inconsequential
      manner in which a bird flies away from a comfortable branch. It was as
      though all unknowing I had heard a whisper or seen something. Well&mdash;perhaps!
      One day I was perfectly right and the next everything was gone&mdash;glamour,
      flavour, interest, contentment&mdash;everything. It was one of these
      moments, you know. The green sickness of late youth descended on me and
      carried me off. Carried me off that ship, I mean.
    </p>
    <p>
      We were only four white men on board, with a large crew of Kalashes and
      two Malay petty officers. The Captain stared hard as if wondering what
      ailed me. But he was a sailor, and he, too, had been young at one time.
      Presently a smile came to lurk under his thick iron-gray moustache, and he
      observed that, of course, if I felt I must go he couldn&rsquo;t keep me by main
      force. And it was arranged that I should be paid off the next morning. As
      I was going out of his cabin he added suddenly, in a peculiar wistful
      tone, that he hoped I would find what I was so anxious to go and look for.
      A soft, cryptic utterance which seemed to reach deeper than any
      diamond-hard tool could have done. I do believe he understood my case.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the second engineer attacked me differently. He was a sturdy young
      Scot, with a smooth face and light eyes. His honest red countenance
      emerged out of the engine-room companion and then the whole robust man,
      with shirt sleeves turned up, wiping slowly the massive fore-arms with a
      lump of cotton-waste. And his light eyes expressed bitter distaste, as
      though our friendship had turned to ashes. He said weightily: &ldquo;Oh! Aye!
      I&rsquo;ve been thinking it was about time for you to run away home and get
      married to some silly girl.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was tacitly understood in the port that John Nieven was a fierce
      misogynist; and the absurd character of the sally convinced me that he
      meant to be nasty&mdash;very nasty&mdash;had meant to say the most
      crushing thing he could think of. My laugh sounded deprecatory. Nobody but
      a friend could be so angry as that. I became a little crestfallen. Our
      chief engineer also took a characteristic view of my action, but in a
      kindlier spirit.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was young, too, but very thin, and with a mist of fluffy brown beard
      all round his haggard face. All day long, at sea or in harbour, he could
      be seen walking hastily up and down the after-deck, wearing an intense,
      spiritually rapt expression, which was caused by a perpetual consciousness
      of unpleasant physical sensations in his internal economy. For he was a
      confirmed dyspeptic. His view of my case was very simple. He said it was
      nothing but deranged liver. Of course! He suggested I should stay for
      another trip and meantime dose myself with a certain patent medicine in
      which his own belief was absolute. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what I&rsquo;ll do. I&rsquo;ll buy
      you two bottles, out of my own pocket. There. I can&rsquo;t say fairer than
      that, can I?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I believe he would have perpetrated the atrocity (or generosity) at the
      merest sign of weakening on my part. By that time, however, I was more
      discontented, disgusted, and dogged than ever. The past eighteen months,
      so full of new and varied experience, appeared a dreary, prosaic waste of
      days. I felt&mdash;how shall I express it?&mdash;that there was no truth
      to be got out of them.
    </p>
    <p>
      What truth? I should have been hard put to it to explain. Probably, if
      pressed, I would have burst into tears simply. I was young enough for
      that.
    </p>
    <p>
      Next day the Captain and I transacted our business in the Harbour Office.
      It was a lofty, big, cool, white room, where the screened light of day
      glowed serenely. Everybody in it&mdash;the officials, the public&mdash;were
      in white. Only the heavy polished desks gleamed darkly in a central
      avenue, and some papers lying on them were blue. Enormous punkahs sent
      from on high a gentle draught through that immaculate interior and upon
      our perspiring heads.
    </p>
    <p>
      The official behind the desk we approached grinned amiably and kept it up
      till, in answer to his perfunctory question, &ldquo;Sign off and on again?&rdquo; my
      Captain answered, &ldquo;No! Signing off for good.&rdquo; And then his grin vanished
      in sudden solemnity. He did not look at me again till he handed me my
      papers with a sorrowful expression, as if they had been my passports for
      Hades.
    </p>
    <p>
      While I was putting them away he murmured some question to the Captain,
      and I heard the latter answer good-humouredly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. He leaves us to go home.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; the other exclaimed, nodding mournfully over my sad condition.
    </p>
    <p>
      I didn&rsquo;t know him outside the official building, but he leaned forward the
      desk to shake hands with me, compassionately, as one would with some poor
      devil going out to be hanged; and I am afraid I performed my part
      ungraciously, in the hardened manner of an impenitent criminal.
    </p>
    <p>
      No homeward-bound mail-boat was due for three or four days. Being now a
      man without a ship, and having for a time broken my connection with the
      sea&mdash;become, in fact, a mere potential passenger&mdash;it would have
      been more appropriate perhaps if I had gone to stay at an hotel. There it
      was, too, within a stone&rsquo;s throw of the Harbour Office, low, but somehow
      palatial, displaying its white, pillared pavilions surrounded by trim
      grass plots. I would have felt a passenger indeed in there! I gave it a
      hostile glance and directed my steps toward the Officers&rsquo; Sailors&rsquo; Home.
    </p>
    <p>
      I walked in the sunshine, disregarding it, and in the shade of the big
      trees on the esplanade without enjoying it. The heat of the tropical East
      descended through the leafy boughs, enveloping my thinly-clad body,
      clinging to my rebellious discontent, as if to rob it of its freedom.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Officers&rsquo; Home was a large bungalow with a wide verandah and a
      curiously suburban-looking little garden of bushes and a few trees between
      it and the street. That institution partook somewhat of the character of a
      residential club, but with a slightly Governmental flavour about it,
      because it was administered by the Harbour Office. Its manager was
      officially styled Chief Steward. He was an unhappy, wizened little man,
      who if put into a jockey&rsquo;s rig would have looked the part to perfection.
      But it was obvious that at some time or other in his life, in some
      capacity or other, he had been connected with the sea. Possibly in the
      comprehensive capacity of a failure.
    </p>
    <p>
      I should have thought his employment a very easy one, but he used to
      affirm for some reason or other that his job would be the death of him
      some day. It was rather mysterious. Perhaps everything naturally was too
      much trouble for him. He certainly seemed to hate having people in the
      house.
    </p>
    <p>
      On entering it I thought he must be feeling pleased. It was as still as a
      tomb. I could see no one in the living rooms; and the verandah, too, was
      empty, except for a man at the far end dozing prone in a long chair. At
      the noise of my footsteps he opened one horribly fish-like eye. He was a
      stranger to me. I retreated from there, and crossing the dining room&mdash;a
      very bare apartment with a motionless punkah hanging over the centre table&mdash;I
      knocked at a door labelled in black letters: &ldquo;Chief Steward.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The answer to my knock being a vexed and doleful plaint: &ldquo;Oh, dear! Oh,
      dear! What is it now?&rdquo; I went in at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a strange room to find in the tropics. Twilight and stuffiness
      reigned in there. The fellow had hung enormously ample, dusty, cheap lace
      curtains over his windows, which were shut. Piles of cardboard boxes, such
      as milliners and dressmakers use in Europe, cumbered the corners; and by
      some means he had procured for himself the sort of furniture that might
      have come out of a respectable parlour in the East End of London&mdash;a
      horsehair sofa, arm-chairs of the same. I glimpsed grimy antimacassars
      scattered over that horrid upholstery, which was awe-inspiring, insomuch
      that one could not guess what mysterious accident, need, or fancy had
      collected it there. Its owner had taken off his tunic, and in white
      trousers and a thin, short-sleeved singlet prowled behind the chair-backs
      nursing his meagre elbows.
    </p>
    <p>
      An exclamation of dismay escaped him when he heard that I had come for a
      stay; but he could not deny that there were plenty of vacant rooms.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very well. Can you give me the one I had before?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He emitted a faint moan from behind a pile of cardboard boxes on the
      table, which might have contained gloves or handkerchiefs or neckties. I
      wonder what the fellow did keep in them? There was a smell of decaying
      coral, or Oriental dust of zoological speciments in that den of his. I
      could only see the top of his head and his unhappy eyes levelled at me
      over the barrier.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only for a couple of days,&rdquo; I said, intending to cheer him up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Perhaps you would like to pay in advance?&rdquo; he suggested eagerly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Certainly not!&rdquo; I burst out directly I could speak. &ldquo;Never heard of such
      a thing! This is the most infernal cheek. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He had seized his head in both hands&mdash;a gesture of despair which
      checked my indignation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Don&rsquo;t fly out like this. I am asking everybody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; I said bluntly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I am going to. And if you gentlemen all agreed to pay in advance I
      could make Hamilton pay up, too. He&rsquo;s always turning up ashore dead broke,
      and even when he has some money he won&rsquo;t settle his bills. I don&rsquo;t know
      what to do with him. He swears at me and tells me I can&rsquo;t chuck a white
      man out into the street here. So if you only would. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was amazed. Incredulous, too. I suspected the fellow of gratuitous
      impertinence. I told him with marked emphasis that I would see him and
      Hamilton hanged first, and requested him to conduct me to my room with no
      more of his nonsense. He produced then a key from somewhere and led the
      way out of his lair, giving me a vicious sidelong look in passing.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Any one I know staying here?&rdquo; I asked him before he left my room.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had recovered his usual pained impatient tone, and said that Captain
      Giles was there, back from a Solo Sea trip. Two other guests were staying
      also. He paused. And, of course, Hamilton, he added.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes! Hamilton,&rdquo; I said, and the miserable creature took himself off
      with a final groan.
    </p>
    <p>
      His impudence still rankled when I came into the dining room at tiffin
      time. He was there on duty overlooking the Chinamen servants. The tiffin
      was laid on one end only of the long table, and the punkah was stirring
      the hot air lazily&mdash;mostly above a barren waste of polished wood.
    </p>
    <p>
      We were four around the cloth. The dozing stranger from the chair was one.
      Both his eyes were partly opened now, but they did not seem to see
      anything. He was supine. The dignified person next him, with short side
      whiskers and a carefully scraped chin, was, of course, Hamilton. I have
      never seen any one so full of dignity for the station in life Providence
      had been pleased to place him in. I had been told that he regarded me as a
      rank outsider. He raised not only his eyes, but his eyebrows as well, at
      the sound I made pulling back my chair.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles was at the head of the table. I exchanged a few words of
      greeting with him and sat down on his left. Stout and pale, with a great
      shiny dome of a bald forehead and prominent brown eyes, he might have been
      anything but a seaman. You would not have been surprised to learn that he
      was an architect. To me (I know how absurd it is) he looked like a
      churchwarden. He had the appearance of a man from whom you would expect
      sound advice, moral sentiments, with perhaps a platitude or two thrown in
      on occasion, not from a desire to dazzle, but from honest conviction.
    </p>
    <p>
      Though very well known and appreciated in the shipping world, he had no
      regular employment. He did not want it. He had his own peculiar position.
      He was an expert. An expert in&mdash;how shall I say it?&mdash;in
      intricate navigation. He was supposed to know more about remote and
      imperfectly charted parts of the Archipelago than any man living. His
      brain must have been a perfect warehouse of reefs, positions, bearings,
      images of headlands, shapes of obscure coasts, aspects of innumerable
      islands, desert and otherwise. Any ship, for instance, bound on a trip to
      Palawan or somewhere that way would have Captain Giles on board, either in
      temporary command or &ldquo;to assist the master.&rdquo; It was said that he had a
      retaining fee from a wealthy firm of Chinese steamship owners, in view of
      such services. Besides, he was always ready to relieve any man who wished
      to take a spell ashore for a time. No owner was ever known to object to an
      arrangement of that sort. For it seemed to be the established opinion at
      the port that Captain Giles was as good as the best, if not a little
      better. But in Hamilton&rsquo;s view he was an &ldquo;outsider.&rdquo; I believe that for
      Hamilton the generalisation &ldquo;outsider&rdquo; covered the whole lot of us; though
      I suppose that he made some distinctions in his mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      I didn&rsquo;t try to make conversation with Captain Giles, whom I had not seen
      more than twice in my life. But, of course, he knew who I was. After a
      while, inclining his big shiny head my way, he addressed me first in his
      friendly fashion. He presumed from seeing me there, he said, that I had
      come ashore for a couple of days&rsquo; leave.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was a low-voiced man. I spoke a little louder, saying that: No&mdash;I
      had left the ship for good.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A free man for a bit,&rdquo; was his comment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose I may call myself that&mdash;since eleven o&rsquo;clock,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hamilton had stopped eating at the sound of our voices. He laid down his
      knife and fork gently, got up, and muttering something about &ldquo;this
      infernal heat cutting one&rsquo;s appetite,&rdquo; went out of the room. Almost
      immediately we heard him leave the house down the verandah steps.
    </p>
    <p>
      On this Captain Giles remarked easily that the fellow had no doubt gone
      off to look after my old job. The Chief Steward, who had been leaning
      against the wall, brought his face of an unhappy goat nearer to the table
      and addressed us dolefully. His object was to unburden himself of his
      eternal grievance against Hamilton. The man kept him in hot water with the
      Harbour Office as to the state of his accounts. He wished to goodness he
      would get my job, though in truth what would it be? Temporary relief at
      best.
    </p>
    <p>
      I said: &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t worry. He won&rsquo;t get my job. My successor is on board
      already.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was surprised, and I believe his face fell a little at the news.
      Captain Giles gave a soft laugh. We got up and went out on the verandah,
      leaving the supine stranger to be dealt with by the Chinamen. The last
      thing I saw they had put a plate with a slice of pine-apple on it before
      him and stood back to watch what would happen. But the experiment seemed a
      failure. He sat insensible.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was imparted to me in a low voice by Captain Giles that this was an
      officer of some Rajah&rsquo;s yacht which had come into our port to be
      dry-docked. Must have been &ldquo;seeing life&rdquo; last night, he added, wrinkling
      his nose in an intimate, confidential way which pleased me vastly. For
      Captain Giles had prestige. He was credited with wonderful adventures and
      with some mysterious tragedy in his life. And no man had a word to say
      against him. He continued:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I remember him first coming ashore here some years ago. Seems only the
      other day. He was a nice boy. Oh! these nice boys!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I could not help laughing aloud. He looked startled, then joined in the
      laugh. &ldquo;No! No! I didn&rsquo;t mean that,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;What I meant is that some
      of them do go soft mighty quick out here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Jocularly I suggested the beastly heat as the first cause. But Captain
      Giles disclosed himself possessed of a deeper philosophy. Things out East
      were made easy for white men. That was all right. The difficulty was to go
      on keeping white, and some of these nice boys did not know how. He gave me
      a searching look, and in a benevolent, heavy-uncle manner asked point
      blank:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why did you throw up your berth?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I became angry all of a sudden; for you can understand how exasperating
      such a question was to a man who didn&rsquo;t know. I said to myself that I
      ought to shut up that moralist; and to him aloud I said with challenging
      politeness:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why . . . ? Do you disapprove?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was too disconcerted to do more than mutter confusedly: &ldquo;I! . . . In a
      general way. . .&rdquo; and then gave me up. But he retired in good order, under
      the cover of a heavily humorous remark that he, too, was getting soft, and
      that this was his time for taking his little siesta&mdash;when he was on
      shore. &ldquo;Very bad habit. Very bad habit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a simplicity in the man which would have disarmed a touchiness
      even more youthful than mine. So when next day at tiffin he bent his head
      toward me and said that he had met my late Captain last evening, adding in
      an undertone: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very sorry you left. He had never had a mate that
      suited him so well,&rdquo; I answered him earnestly, without any affectation,
      that I certainly hadn&rsquo;t been so comfortable in any ship or with any
      commander in all my sea-going days.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;then,&rdquo; he murmured.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you heard, Captain Giles, that I intend to go home?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said benevolently. &ldquo;I have heard that sort of thing so often
      before.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What of that?&rdquo; I cried. I thought he was the most dull, unimaginative man
      I had ever met. I don&rsquo;t know what more I would have said, but the
      much-belated Hamilton came in just then and took his usual seat. So I
      dropped into a mumble.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anyhow, you shall see it done this time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hamilton, beautifully shaved, gave Captain Giles a curt nod, but didn&rsquo;t
      even condescend to raise his eyebrows at me; and when he spoke it was only
      to tell the Chief Steward that the food on his plate wasn&rsquo;t fit to be set
      before a gentleman. The individual addressed seemed much too unhappy to
      groan. He cast his eyes up to the punkah and that was all.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles and I got up from the table, and the stranger next to
      Hamilton followed our example, manoeuvring himself to his feet with
      difficulty. He, poor fellow, not because he was hungry but I verily
      believe only to recover his self-respect, had tried to put some of that
      unworthy food into his mouth. But after dropping his fork twice and
      generally making a failure of it, he had sat still with an air of intense
      mortification combined with a ghastly glazed stare. Both Giles and I had
      avoided looking his way at table.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the verandah he stopped short on purpose to address to us anxiously a
      long remark which I failed to understand completely. It sounded like some
      horrible unknown language. But when Captain Giles, after only an instant
      for reflection, assured him with homely friendliness, &ldquo;Aye, to be sure.
      You are right there,&rdquo; he appeared very much gratified indeed, and went
      away (pretty straight, too) to seek a distant long chair.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What was he trying to say?&rdquo; I asked with disgust.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Mustn&rsquo;t be down too much on a fellow. He&rsquo;s feeling pretty
      wretched, you may be sure; and to-morrow he&rsquo;ll feel worse yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Judging by the man&rsquo;s appearance it seemed impossible. I wondered what sort
      of complicated debauch had reduced him to that unspeakable condition.
      Captain Giles&rsquo; benevolence was spoiled by a curious air of complacency
      which I disliked. I said with a little laugh:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, he will have you to look after him.&rdquo; He made a deprecatory gesture,
      sat down, and took up a paper. I did the same. The papers were old and
      uninteresting, filled up mostly with dreary stereotyped descriptions of
      Queen Victoria&rsquo;s first jubilee celebrations. Probably we should have
      quickly fallen into a tropical afternoon doze if it had not been for
      Hamilton&rsquo;s voice raised in the dining room. He was finishing his tiffin
      there. The big double doors stood wide open permanently, and he could not
      have had any idea how near to the doorway our chairs were placed. He was
      heard in a loud, supercilious tone answering some statement ventured by
      the Chief Steward.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am not going to be rushed into anything. They will be glad enough to
      get a gentleman I imagine. There is no hurry.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A loud whispering from the Steward succeeded and then again Hamilton was
      heard with even intenser scorn.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What? That young ass who fancies himself for having been chief mate with
      Kent so long? . . . Preposterous.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Giles and I looked at each other. Kent being the name of my late
      commander, Captain Giles&rsquo; whisper, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s talking of you,&rdquo; seemed to me
      sheer waste of breath. The Chief Steward must have stuck to his point,
      whatever it was, because Hamilton was heard again more supercilious if
      possible, and also very emphatic:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Rubbish, my good man! One doesn&rsquo;t <i>compete</i> with a rank outsider
      like that. There&rsquo;s plenty of time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then there were pushing of chairs, footsteps in the next room, and
      plaintive expostulations from the Steward, who was pursuing Hamilton, even
      out of doors through the main entrance.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very insulting sort of man,&rdquo; remarked Captain Giles&mdash;superfluously,
      I thought. &ldquo;Very insulting. You haven&rsquo;t offended him in some way, have
      you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never spoke to him in my life,&rdquo; I said grumpily. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t imagine what he
      means by competing. He has been trying for my job after I left&mdash;and
      didn&rsquo;t get it. But that isn&rsquo;t exactly competition.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles balanced his big benevolent head thoughtfully. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t
      get it,&rdquo; he repeated very slowly. &ldquo;No, not likely either, with Kent. Kent
      is no end sorry you left him. He gives you the name of a good seaman,
      too.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I flung away the paper I was still holding. I sat up, I slapped the table
      with my open palm. I wanted to know why he would keep harping on that, my
      absolutely private affair. It was exasperating, really.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles silenced me by the perfect equanimity of his gaze. &ldquo;Nothing
      to be annoyed about,&rdquo; he murmured reasonably, with an evident desire to
      soothe the childish irritation he had aroused. And he was really a man of
      an appearance so inoffensive that I tried to explain myself as much as I
      could. I told him that I did not want to hear any more about what was past
      and gone. It had been very nice while it lasted, but now it was done with
      I preferred not to talk about it or even think about it. I had made up my
      mind to go home.
    </p>
    <p>
      He listened to the whole tirade in a particular lending-the-ear attitude,
      as if trying to detect a false note in it somewhere; then straightened
      himself up and appeared to ponder sagaciously over the matter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. You told me you meant to go home. Anything in view there?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Instead of telling him that it was none of his business I said sullenly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing that I know of.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had indeed considered that rather blank side of the situation I had
      created for myself by leaving suddenly my very satisfactory employment.
      And I was not very pleased with it. I had it on the tip of my tongue to
      say that common sense had nothing to do with my action, and that therefore
      it didn&rsquo;t deserve the interest Captain Giles seemed to be taking in it.
      But he was puffing at a short wooden pipe now, and looked so guileless,
      dense, and commonplace, that it seemed hardly worth while to puzzle him
      either with truth or sarcasm.
    </p>
    <p>
      He blew a cloud of smoke, then surprised me by a very abrupt: &ldquo;Paid your
      passage money yet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Overcome by the shameless pertinacity of a man to whom it was rather
      difficult to be rude, I replied with exaggerated meekness that I had not
      done so yet. I thought there would be plenty of time to do that to-morrow.
    </p>
    <p>
      And I was about to turn away, withdrawing my privacy from his fatuous,
      objectless attempts to test what sort of stuff it was made of, when he
      laid down his pipe in an extremely significant manner, you know, as if a
      critical moment had come, and leaned sideways over the table between us.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! You haven&rsquo;t yet!&rdquo; He dropped his voice mysteriously. &ldquo;Well, then I
      think you ought to know that there&rsquo;s something going on here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had never in my life felt more detached from all earthly goings on.
      Freed from the sea for a time, I preserved the sailor&rsquo;s consciousness of
      complete independence from all land affairs. How could they concern me? I
      gazed at Captain Giles&rsquo; animation with scorn rather than with curiosity.
    </p>
    <p>
      To his obviously preparatory question whether our Steward had spoken to me
      that day I said he hadn&rsquo;t. And what&rsquo;s more he would have had precious
      little encouragement if he had tried to. I didn&rsquo;t want the fellow to speak
      to me at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      Unrebuked by my petulance, Captain Giles, with an air of immense sagacity,
      began to tell me a minute tale about a Harbour Office peon. It was
      absolutely pointless. A peon was seen walking that morning on the verandah
      with a letter in his hand. It was in an official envelope. As the habit of
      these fellows is, he had shown it to the first white man he came across.
      That man was our friend in the arm-chair. He, as I knew, was not in a
      state to interest himself in any sublunary matters. He could only wave the
      peon away. The peon then wandered on along the verandah and came upon
      Captain Giles, who was there by an extraordinary chance. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      At this point he stopped with a profound look. The letter, he continued,
      was addressed to the Chief Steward. Now what could Captain Ellis, the
      Master Attendant, want to write to the Steward for? The fellow went every
      morning, anyhow, to the Harbour Office with his report, for orders or what
      not. He hadn&rsquo;t been back more than an hour before there was an office peon
      chasing him with a note. Now what was that for?
    </p>
    <p>
      And he began to speculate. It was not for this&mdash;and it could not be
      for that. As to that other thing it was unthinkable.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fatuousness of all this made me stare. If the man had not been somehow
      a sympathetic personality I would have resented it like an insult. As it
      was, I felt only sorry for him. Something remarkably earnest in his gaze
      prevented me from laughing in his face. Neither did I yawn at him. I just
      stared.
    </p>
    <p>
      His tone became a shade more mysterious. Directly the fellow (meaning the
      Steward) got that note he rushed for his hat and bolted out of the house.
      But it wasn&rsquo;t because the note called him to the Harbour Office. He didn&rsquo;t
      go there. He was not absent long enough for that. He came darting back in
      no time, flung his hat away, and raced about the dining room moaning and
      slapping his forehead. All these exciting facts and manifestations had
      been observed by Captain Giles. He had, it seems, been meditating upon
      them ever since.
    </p>
    <p>
      I began to pity him profoundly. And in a tone which I tried to make as
      little sarcastic as possible I said that I was glad he had found something
      to occupy his morning hours.
    </p>
    <p>
      With his disarming simplicity he made me observe, as if it were a matter
      of some consequence, how strange it was that he should have spent the
      morning indoors at all. He generally was out before tiffin, visiting
      various offices, seeing his friends in the harbour, and so on. He had felt
      out of sorts somewhat on rising. Nothing much. Just enough to make him
      feel lazy.
    </p>
    <p>
      All this with a sustained, holding stare which, in conjunction with the
      general inanity of the discourse, conveyed the impression of mild, dreary
      lunacy. And when he hitched his chair a little and dropped his voice to
      the low note of mystery, it flashed upon me that high professional
      reputation was not necessarily a guarantee of sound mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      It never occurred to me then that I didn&rsquo;t know in what soundness of mind
      exactly consisted and what a delicate and, upon the whole, unimportant
      matter it was. With some idea of not hurting his feelings I blinked at him
      in an interested manner. But when he proceeded to ask me mysteriously
      whether I remembered what had passed just now between that Steward of ours
      and &ldquo;that man Hamilton,&rdquo; I only grunted sourly assent and turned away my
      head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aye. But do you remember every word?&rdquo; he insisted tactfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. It&rsquo;s none of my business,&rdquo; I snapped out, consigning,
      moreover, the Steward and Hamilton aloud to eternal perdition.
    </p>
    <p>
      I meant to be very energetic and final, but Captain Giles continued to
      gaze at me thoughtfully. Nothing could stop him. He went on to point out
      that my personality was involved in that conversation. When I tried to
      preserve the semblance of unconcern he became positively cruel. I heard
      what the man had said? Yes? What did I think of it then?&mdash;he wanted
      to know.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles&rsquo; appearance excluding the suspicion of mere sly malice, I
      came to the conclusion that he was simply the most tactless idiot on
      earth. I almost despised myself for the weakness of attempting to
      enlighten his common understanding. I started to explain that I did not
      think anything whatever. Hamilton was not worth a thought. What such an
      offensive loafer . . . &ldquo;Aye! that he is,&rdquo; interjected Captain Giles . . .
      thought or said was below any decent man&rsquo;s contempt, and I did not propose
      to take the slightest notice of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      This attitude seemed to me so simple and obvious that I was really
      astonished at Giles giving no sign of assent. Such perfect stupidity was
      almost interesting.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What would you like me to do?&rdquo; I asked, laughing. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t start a row
      with him because of the opinion he has formed of me. Of course, I&rsquo;ve heard
      of the contemptuous way he alludes to me. But he doesn&rsquo;t intrude his
      contempt on my notice. He has never expressed it in my hearing. For even
      just now he didn&rsquo;t know we could hear him. I should only make myself
      ridiculous.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That hopeless Giles went on puffing at his pipe moodily. All at once his
      face cleared, and he spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You missed my point.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have I? I am very glad to hear it,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      With increasing animation he stated again that I had missed his point.
      Entirely. And in a tone of growing self-conscious complacency he told me
      that few things escaped his attention, and he was rather used to think
      them out, and generally from his experience of life and men arrived at the
      right conclusion.
    </p>
    <p>
      This bit of self-praise, of course, fitted excellently the laborious
      inanity of the whole conversation. The whole thing strengthened in me that
      obscure feeling of life being but a waste of days, which,
      half-unconsciously, had driven me out of a comfortable berth, away from
      men I liked, to flee from the menace of emptiness . . . and to find
      inanity at the first turn. Here was a man of recognized character and
      achievement disclosed as an absurd and dreary chatterer. And it was
      probably like this everywhere&mdash;from east to west, from the bottom to
      the top of the social scale.
    </p>
    <p>
      A great discouragement fell on me. A spiritual drowsiness. Giles&rsquo; voice
      was going on complacently; the very voice of the universal hollow conceit.
      And I was no longer angry with it. There was nothing original, nothing
      new, startling, informing, to expect from the world; no opportunities to
      find out something about oneself, no wisdom to acquire, no fun to enjoy.
      Everything was stupid and overrated, even as Captain Giles was. So be it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The name of Hamilton suddenly caught my ear and roused me up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thought we had done with him,&rdquo; I said, with the greatest possible
      distaste.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. But considering what we happened to hear just now I think you ought
      to do it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ought to do it?&rdquo; I sat up bewildered. &ldquo;Do what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles confronted me very much surprised.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why! Do what I have been advising you to try. You go and ask the Steward
      what was there in that letter from the Harbour Office. Ask him straight
      out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I remained speechless for a time. Here was something unexpected and
      original enough to be altogether incomprehensible. I murmured, astounded:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I thought it was Hamilton that you . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Exactly. Don&rsquo;t you let him. You do what I tell you. You tackle that
      Steward. You&rsquo;ll make him jump, I bet,&rdquo; insisted Captain Giles, waving his
      smouldering pipe impressively at me. Then he took three rapid puffs at it.
    </p>
    <p>
      His aspect of triumphant acuteness was indescribable. Yet the man remained
      a strangely sympathetic creature. Benevolence radiated from him
      ridiculously, mildly, impressively. It was irritating, too. But I pointed
      out coldly, as one who deals with the incomprehensible, that I didn&rsquo;t see
      any reason to expose myself to a snub from the fellow. He was a very
      unsatisfactory steward and a miserable wretch besides, but I would just as
      soon think of tweaking his nose.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tweaking his nose,&rdquo; said Captain Giles in a scandalized tone. &ldquo;Much use
      it would be to you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That remark was so irrelevant that one could make no answer to it. But the
      sense of the absurdity was beginning at last to exercise its well-known
      fascination. I felt I must not let the man talk to me any more. I got up,
      observing curtly that he was too much for me&mdash;that I couldn&rsquo;t make
      him out.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before I had time to move away he spoke again in a changed tone of
      obstinacy and puffing nervously at his pipe.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;he&rsquo;s a&mdash;no account cuss&mdash;anyhow. You just&mdash;ask
      him. That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That new manner impressed me&mdash;or rather made me pause. But sanity
      asserting its sway at once I left the verandah after giving him a
      mirthless smile. In a few strides I found myself in the dining room, now
      cleared and empty. But during that short time various thoughts occurred to
      me, such as: that Giles had been making fun of me, expecting some
      amusement at my expense; that I probably looked silly and gullible; that I
      knew very little of life. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      The door facing me across the dining room flew open to my extreme
      surprise. It was the door inscribed with the word &ldquo;Steward&rdquo; and the man
      himself ran out of his stuffy, Philistinish lair in his absurd,
      hunted-animal manner, making for the garden door.
    </p>
    <p>
      To this day I don&rsquo;t know what made me call after him. &ldquo;I say! Wait a
      minute.&rdquo; Perhaps it was the sidelong glance he gave me; or possibly I was
      yet under the influence of Captain Giles&rsquo; mysterious earnestness. Well, it
      was an impulse of some sort; an effect of that force somewhere within our
      lives which shapes them this way or that. For if these words had not
      escaped from my lips (my will had nothing to do with that) my existence
      would, to be sure, have been still a seaman&rsquo;s existence, but directed on
      now to me utterly inconceivable lines.
    </p>
    <p>
      No. My will had nothing to do with it. Indeed, no sooner had I made that
      fateful noise than I became extremely sorry for it. Had the man stopped
      and faced me I would have had to retire in disorder. For I had no notion
      to carry out Captain Giles&rsquo; idiotic joke, either at my own expense or at
      the expense of the Steward.
    </p>
    <p>
      But here the old human instinct of the chase came into play. He pretended
      to be deaf, and I, without thinking a second about it, dashed along my own
      side of the dining table and cut him off at the very door.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t you answer when you are spoken to?&rdquo; I asked roughly.
    </p>
    <p>
      He leaned against the lintel of the door. He looked extremely wretched.
      Human nature is, I fear, not very nice right through. There are ugly spots
      in it. I found myself growing angry, and that, I believe, only because my
      quarry looked so woe-begone. Miserable beggar!
    </p>
    <p>
      I went for him without more ado. &ldquo;I understand there was an official
      communication to the Home from the Harbour Office this morning. Is that
      so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Instead of telling me to mind my own business, as he might have done, he
      began to whine with an undertone of impudence. He couldn&rsquo;t see me anywhere
      this morning. He couldn&rsquo;t be expected to run all over the town after me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who wants you to?&rdquo; I cried. And then my eyes became opened to the
      inwardness of things and speeches the triviality of which had been so
      baffling and tiresome.
    </p>
    <p>
      I told him I wanted to know what was in that letter. My sternness of tone
      and behaviour was only half assumed. Curiosity can be a very fierce
      sentiment&mdash;at times.
    </p>
    <p>
      He took refuge in a silly, muttering sulkiness. It was nothing to me, he
      mumbled. I had told him I was going home. And since I was going home he
      didn&rsquo;t see why he should. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      That was the line of his argument, and it was irrelevant enough to be
      almost insulting. Insulting to one&rsquo;s intelligence, I mean.
    </p>
    <p>
      In that twilight region between youth and maturity, in which I had my
      being then, one is peculiarly sensitive to that kind of insult. I am
      afraid my behaviour to the Steward became very rough indeed. But it wasn&rsquo;t
      in him to face out anything or anybody. Drug habit or solitary tippling,
      perhaps. And when I forgot myself so far as to swear at him he broke down
      and began to shriek.
    </p>
    <p>
      I don&rsquo;t mean to say that he made a great outcry. It was a cynical
      shrieking confession, only faint&mdash;piteously faint. It wasn&rsquo;t very
      coherent either, but sufficiently so to strike me dumb at first. I turned
      my eyes from him in righteous indignation, and perceived Captain Giles in
      the verandah doorway surveying quietly the scene, his own handiwork, if I
      may express it in that way. His smouldering black pipe was very noticeable
      in his big, paternal fist. So, too, was the glitter of his heavy gold
      watch-chain across the breast of his white tunic. He exhaled an atmosphere
      of virtuous sagacity serene enough for any innocent soul to fly to
      confidently. I flew to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You would never believe it,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;It was a notification that a
      master is wanted for some ship. There&rsquo;s a command apparently going about
      and this fellow puts the thing in his pocket.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Steward screamed out in accents of loud despair: &ldquo;You will be the
      death of me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The mighty slap he gave his wretched forehead was very loud, too. But when
      I turned to look at him he was no longer there. He had rushed away
      somewhere out of sight. This sudden disappearance made me laugh.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was the end of the incident&mdash;for me. Captain Giles, however,
      staring at the place where the Steward had been, began to haul at his
      gorgeous gold chain till at last the watch came up from the deep pocket
      like solid truth from a well. Solemnly he lowered it down again and only
      then said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just three o&rsquo;clock. You will be in time&mdash;if you don&rsquo;t lose any, that
      is.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In time for what?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good Lord! For the Harbour Office. This must be looked into.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Strictly speaking, he was right. But I&rsquo;ve never had much taste for
      investigation, for showing people up and all that no doubt ethically
      meritorious kind of work. And my view of the episode was purely ethical.
      If any one had to be the death of the Steward I didn&rsquo;t see why it
      shouldn&rsquo;t be Captain Giles himself, a man of age and standing, and a
      permanent resident. Whereas, I in comparison, felt myself a mere bird of
      passage in that port. In fact, it might have been said that I had already
      broken off my connection. I muttered that I didn&rsquo;t think&mdash;it was
      nothing to me. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nothing!&rdquo; repeated Captain Giles, giving some signs of quiet, deliberate
      indignation. &ldquo;Kent warned me you were a peculiar young fellow. You will
      tell me next that a command is nothing to you&mdash;and after all the
      trouble I&rsquo;ve taken, too!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The trouble!&rdquo; I murmured, uncomprehending. What trouble? All I could
      remember was being mystified and bored by his conversation for a solid
      hour after tiffin. And he called that taking a lot of trouble.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was looking at me with a self-complacency which would have been odious
      in any other man. All at once, as if a page of a book had been turned over
      disclosing a word which made plain all that had gone before, I perceived
      that this matter had also another than an ethical aspect.
    </p>
    <p>
      And still I did not move. Captain Giles lost his patience a little. With
      an angry puff at his pipe he turned his back on my hesitation.
    </p>
    <p>
      But it was not hesitation on my part. I had been, if I may express myself
      so, put out of gear mentally. But as soon as I had convinced myself that
      this stale, unprofitable world of my discontent contained such a thing as
      a command to be seized, I recovered my powers of locomotion.
    </p>
    <p>
      It&rsquo;s a good step from the Officers&rsquo; Home to the Harbour Office; but with
      the magic word &ldquo;Command&rdquo; in my head I found myself suddenly on the quay as
      if transported there in the twinkling of an eye, before a portal of
      dressed white stone above a flight of shallow white steps.
    </p>
    <p>
      All this seemed to glide toward me swiftly. The whole great roadstead to
      the right was just a mere flicker of blue, and the dim cool hall swallowed
      me up out of the heat and glare of which I had not been aware till the
      very moment I passed in from it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The broad inner staircase insinuated itself under my feet somehow. Command
      is a strong magic. The first human beings I perceived distinctly since I
      had parted with the indignant back of Captain Giles were the crew of the
      harbour steam-launch lounging on the spacious landing about the curtained
      archway of the shipping office.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was there that my buoyancy abandoned me. The atmosphere of officialdom
      would kill anything that breathes the air of human endeavour, would
      extinguish hope and fear alike in the supremacy of paper and ink. I passed
      heavily under the curtain which the Malay coxswain of the harbour launch
      raised for me. There was nobody in the office except the clerks, writing
      in two industrious rows. But the head Shipping-Master hopped down from his
      elevation and hurried along on the thick mats to meet me in the broad
      central passage.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had a Scottish name, but his complexion was of a rich olive hue, his
      short beard was jet black, and his eyes, also black, had a languishing
      expression. He asked confidentially:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You want to see Him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All lightness of spirit and body having departed from me at the touch of
      officialdom, I looked at the scribe without animation and asked in my turn
      wearily:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you think? Is it any use?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My goodness! He has asked for you twice today.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This emphatic He was the supreme authority, the Marine Superintendent, the
      Harbour-Master&mdash;a very great person in the eyes of every single
      quill-driver in the room. But that was nothing to the opinion he had of
      his own greatness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Ellis looked upon himself as a sort of divine (pagan) emanation,
      the deputy-Neptune for the circumambient seas. If he did not actually rule
      the waves, he pretended to rule the fate of the mortals whose lives were
      cast upon the waters.
    </p>
    <p>
      This uplifting illusion made him inquisitorial and peremptory. And as his
      temperament was choleric there were fellows who were actually afraid of
      him. He was redoubtable, not in virtue of his office, but because of his
      unwarrantable assumptions. I had never had anything to do with him before.
    </p>
    <p>
      I said: &ldquo;Oh! He has asked for me twice. Then perhaps I had better go in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must! You must!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Shipping-Master led the way with a mincing gait around the whole
      system of desks to a tall and important-looking door, which he opened with
      a deferential action of the arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      He stepped right in (but without letting go of the handle) and, after
      gazing reverently down the room for a while, beckoned me in by a silent
      jerk of the head. Then he slipped out at once and shut the door after me
      most delicately.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three lofty windows gave on the harbour. There was nothing in them but the
      dark-blue sparkling sea and the paler luminous blue of the sky. My eye
      caught in the depths and distances of these blue tones the white speck of
      some big ship just arrived and about to anchor in the outer roadstead. A
      ship from home&mdash;after perhaps ninety days at sea. There is something
      touching about a ship coming in from sea and folding her white wings for a
      rest.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next thing I saw was the top-knot of silver hair surmounting Captain
      Ellis&rsquo; smooth red face, which would have been apoplectic if it hadn&rsquo;t had
      such a fresh appearance.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our deputy-Neptune had no beard on his chin, and there was no trident to
      be seen standing in a corner anywhere, like an umbrella. But his hand was
      holding a pen&mdash;the official pen, far mightier than the sword in
      making or marring the fortune of simple toiling men. He was looking over
      his shoulder at my advance.
    </p>
    <p>
      When I had come well within range he saluted me by a nerve-shattering:
      &ldquo;Where have you been all this time?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      As it was no concern of his I did not take the slightest notice of the
      shot. I said simply that I had heard there was a master needed for some
      vessel, and being a sailing-ship man I thought I would apply. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      He interrupted me. &ldquo;Why! Hang it! <i>You</i> are the right man for that
      job&mdash;if there had been twenty others after it. But no fear of that.
      They are all afraid to catch hold. That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s the matter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was very irritated. I said innocently: &ldquo;Are they, sir. I wonder why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; he fumed. &ldquo;Afraid of the sails. Afraid of a white crew. Too much
      trouble. Too much work. Too long out here. Easy life and deck-chairs more
      their mark. Here I sit with the Consul-General&rsquo;s cable before me, and the
      only man fit for the job not to be found anywhere. I began to think you
      were funking it, too. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t been long getting to the office,&rdquo; I remarked calmly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have a good name out here, though,&rdquo; he growled savagely without
      looking at me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am very glad to hear it from you, sir,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. But you are not on the spot when you are wanted. You know you
      weren&rsquo;t. That steward of yours wouldn&rsquo;t dare to neglect a message from
      this office. Where the devil did you hide yourself for the best part of
      the day?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I only smiled kindly down on him, and he seemed to recollect himself, and
      asked me to take a seat. He explained that the master of a British ship
      having died in Bangkok the Consul-General had cabled to him a request for
      a competent man to be sent out to take command.
    </p>
    <p>
      Apparently, in his mind, I was the man from the first, though for the
      looks of the thing the notification addressed to the Sailors&rsquo; Home was
      general. An agreement had already been prepared. He gave it to me to read,
      and when I handed it back to him with the remark that I accepted its
      terms, the deputy-Neptune signed it, stamped it with his own exalted hand,
      folded it in four (it was a sheet of blue foolscap) and presented it to me&mdash;a
      gift of extraordinary potency, for, as I put it in my pocket, my head swam
      a little.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is your appointment to the command,&rdquo; he said with a certain gravity.
      &ldquo;An official appointment binding the owners to conditions which you have
      accepted. Now&mdash;when will you be ready to go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I said I would be ready that very day if necessary. He caught me at my
      word with great alacrity. The steamer Melita was leaving for Bangkok that
      evening about seven. He would request her captain officially to give me a
      passage and wait for me till ten o&rsquo;clock.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then he rose from his office chair, and I got up, too. My head swam, there
      was no doubt about it, and I felt a certain heaviness of limbs as if they
      had grown bigger since I had sat down on that chair. I made my bow.
    </p>
    <p>
      A subtle change in Captain Ellis&rsquo; manner became perceptible as though he
      had laid aside the trident of deputy-Neptune. In reality, it was only his
      official pen that he had dropped on getting up.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      II
    </h2>
    <p>
      He shook hands with me: &ldquo;Well, there you are, on your own, appointed
      officially under my responsibility.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was actually walking with me to the door. What a distance off it
      seemed! I moved like a man in bonds. But we reached it at last. I opened
      it with the sensation of dealing with mere dream-stuff, and then at the
      last moment the fellowship of seamen asserted itself, stronger than the
      difference of age and station. It asserted itself in Captain Ellis&rsquo; voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good-bye&mdash;and good luck to you,&rdquo; he said so heartily that I could
      only give him a grateful glance. Then I turned and went out, never to see
      him again in my life. I had not made three steps into the outer office
      when I heard behind my back a gruff, loud, authoritative voice, the voice
      of our deputy-Neptune.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was addressing the head Shipping-Master who, having let me in, had,
      apparently, remained hovering in the middle distance ever since. &ldquo;Mr. R.,
      let the harbour launch have steam up to take the captain here on board the
      Melita at half-past nine to-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I was amazed at the startled alacrity of R&rsquo;s &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo; He ran before me
      out on the landing. My new dignity sat yet so lightly on me that I was not
      aware that it was I, the Captain, the object of this last graciousness. It
      seemed as if all of a sudden a pair of wings had grown on my shoulders. I
      merely skimmed along the polished floor.
    </p>
    <p>
      But R. was impressed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed on the landing, while the Malay crew of the
      steam-launch standing by looked stonily at the man for whom they were
      going to be kept on duty so late, away from their gambling, from their
      girls, or their pure domestic joys. &ldquo;I say! His own launch. What have you
      done to him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His stare was full of respectful curiosity. I was quite confounded.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was it for me? I hadn&rsquo;t the slightest notion,&rdquo; I stammered out.
    </p>
    <p>
      He nodded many times. &ldquo;Yes. And the last person who had it before you was
      a Duke. So, there!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I think he expected me to faint on the spot. But I was in too much of a
      hurry for emotional displays. My feelings were already in such a whirl
      that this staggering information did not seem to make the slightest
      difference. It merely fell into the seething cauldron of my brain, and I
      carried it off with me after a short but effusive passage of leave-taking
      with R.
    </p>
    <p>
      The favour of the great throws an aureole round the fortunate object of
      its selection. That excellent man enquired whether he could do anything
      for me. He had known me only by sight, and he was well aware he would
      never see me again; I was, in common with the other seamen of the port,
      merely a subject for official writing, filling up of forms with all the
      artificial superiority of a man of pen and ink to the men who grapple with
      realities outside the consecrated walls of official buildings. What ghosts
      we must have been to him! Mere symbols to juggle with in books and heavy
      registers, without brains and muscles and perplexities; something hardly
      useful and decidedly inferior.
    </p>
    <p>
      And he&mdash;the office hours being over&mdash;wanted to know if he could
      be of any use to me!
    </p>
    <p>
      I ought&mdash;properly speaking&mdash;I ought to have been moved to tears.
      But I did not even think of it. It was merely another miraculous
      manifestation of that day of miracles. I parted from him as if he were a
      mere symbol. I floated down the staircase. I floated out of the official
      and imposing portal. I went on floating along.
    </p>
    <p>
      I use that word rather than the word &ldquo;flew,&rdquo; because I have a distinct
      impression that, though uplifted by my aroused youth, my movements were
      deliberate enough. To that mixed white, brown, and yellow portion of
      mankind, out abroad on their own affairs, I presented the appearance of a
      man walking rather sedately. And nothing in the way of abstraction could
      have equalled my deep detachment from the forms and colours of this world.
      It was, as it were, final.
    </p>
    <p>
      And yet, suddenly, I recognized Hamilton. I recognized him without effort,
      without a shock, without a start. There he was, strolling toward the
      Harbour Office with his stiff, arrogant dignity. His red face made him
      noticeable at a distance. It flamed, over there, on the shady side of the
      street.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had perceived me, too. Something (unconscious exuberance of spirits
      perhaps) moved me to wave my hand to him elaborately. This lapse from good
      taste happened before I was aware that I was capable of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The impact of my impudence stopped him short, much as a bullet might have
      done. I verily believe he staggered, though as far as I could see he
      didn&rsquo;t actually fall. I had gone past in a moment and did not turn my
      head. I had forgotten his existence.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next ten minutes might have been ten seconds or ten centuries for all
      my consciousness had to do with it. People might have been falling dead
      around me, houses crumbling, guns firing, I wouldn&rsquo;t have known. I was
      thinking: &ldquo;By Jove! I have got it.&rdquo; <i>It</i> being the command. It had
      come about in a way utterly unforeseen in my modest day-dreams.
    </p>
    <p>
      I perceived that my imagination had been running in conventional channels
      and that my hopes had always been drab stuff. I had envisaged a command as
      a result of a slow course of promotion in the employ of some highly
      respectable firm. The reward of faithful service. Well, faithful service
      was all right. One would naturally give that for one&rsquo;s own sake, for the
      sake of the ship, for the love of the life of one&rsquo;s choice; not for the
      sake of the reward.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is something distasteful in the notion of a reward.
    </p>
    <p>
      And now here I had my command, absolutely in my pocket, in a way
      undeniable indeed, but most unexpected; beyond my imaginings, outside all
      reasonable expectations, and even notwithstanding the existence of some
      sort of obscure intrigue to keep it away from me. It is true that the
      intrigue was feeble, but it helped the feeling of wonder&mdash;as if I had
      been specially destined for that ship I did not know, by some power higher
      than the prosaic agencies of the commercial world.
    </p>
    <p>
      A strange sense of exultation began to creep into me. If I had worked for
      that command ten years or more there would have been nothing of the kind.
      I was a little frightened.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let us be calm,&rdquo; I said to myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Outside the door of the Officers&rsquo; Home the wretched Steward seemed to be
      waiting for me. There was a broad flight of a few steps, and he ran to and
      fro on the top of it as if chained there. A distressed cur. He looked as
      though his throat were too dry for him to bark.
    </p>
    <p>
      I regret to say I stopped before going in. There had been a revolution in
      my moral nature. He waited open-mouthed, breathless, while I looked at him
      for half a minute.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you thought you could keep me out of it,&rdquo; I said scathingly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You said you were going home,&rdquo; he squeaked miserably. &ldquo;You said so. You
      said so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I wonder what Captain Ellis will have to say to that excuse,&rdquo; I uttered
      slowly with a sinister meaning.
    </p>
    <p>
      His lower jaw had been trembling all the time and his voice was like the
      bleating of a sick goat. &ldquo;You have given me away? You have done for me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Neither his distress nor yet the sheer absurdity of it was able to disarm
      me. It was the first instance of harm being attempted to be done to me&mdash;at
      any rate, the first I had ever found out. And I was still young enough,
      still too much on this side of the shadow line, not to be surprised and
      indignant at such things.
    </p>
    <p>
      I gazed at him inflexibly. Let the beggar suffer. He slapped his forehead
      and I passed in, pursued, into the dining room, by his screech: &ldquo;I always
      said you&rsquo;d be the death of me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This clamour not only overtook me, but went ahead as it were on to the
      verandah and brought out Captain Giles.
    </p>
    <p>
      He stood before me in the doorway in all the commonplace solidity of his
      wisdom. The gold chain glittered on his breast. He clutched a smouldering
      pipe.
    </p>
    <p>
      I extended my hand to him warmly and he seemed surprised, but did respond
      heartily enough in the end, with a faint smile of superior knowledge which
      cut my thanks short as if with a knife. I don&rsquo;t think that more than one
      word came out. And even for that one, judging by the temperature of my
      face, I had blushed as if for a bad action. Assuming a detached tone, I
      wondered how on earth he had managed to spot the little underhand game
      that had been going on.
    </p>
    <p>
      He murmured complacently that there were but few things done in the town
      that he could not see the inside of. And as to this house, he had been
      using it off and on for nearly ten years. Nothing that went on in it could
      escape his great experience. It had been no trouble to him. No trouble at
      all.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then in his quiet, thick tone he wanted to know if I had complained
      formally of the Steward&rsquo;s action.
    </p>
    <p>
      I said that I hadn&rsquo;t&mdash;though, indeed, it was not for want of
      opportunity. Captain Ellis had gone for me bald-headed in a most
      ridiculous fashion for being out of the way when wanted.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Funny old gentleman,&rdquo; interjected Captain Giles. &ldquo;What did you say to
      that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I said simply that I came along the very moment I heard of his message.
      Nothing more. I didn&rsquo;t want to hurt the Steward. I would scorn to harm
      such an object. No. I made no complaint, but I believe he thinks I&rsquo;ve done
      so. Let him think. He&rsquo;s got a fright he won&rsquo;t forget in a hurry, for
      Captain Ellis would kick him out into the middle of Asia. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wait a moment,&rdquo; said Captain Giles, leaving me suddenly. I sat down
      feeling very tired, mostly in my head. Before I could start a train of
      thought he stood again before me, murmuring the excuse that he had to go
      and put the fellow&rsquo;s mind at ease.
    </p>
    <p>
      I looked up with surprise. But in reality I was indifferent. He explained
      that he had found the Steward lying face downward on the horsehair sofa.
      He was all right now.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He would not have died of fright,&rdquo; I said contemptuously.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. But he might have taken an overdose out of one of them little bottles
      he keeps in his room,&rdquo; Captain Giles argued seriously. &ldquo;The confounded
      fool has tried to poison himself once&mdash;a few years ago.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; I said without emotion. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t seem very fit to live,
      anyhow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As to that, it may be said of a good many.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t exaggerate like this!&rdquo; I protested, laughing irritably. &ldquo;But I
      wonder what this part of the world would do if you were to leave off
      looking after it, Captain Giles? Here you have got me a command and saved
      the Steward&rsquo;s life in one afternoon. Though why you should have taken all
      that interest in either of us is more than I can understand.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles remained silent for a minute. Then gravely:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not a bad steward really. He can find a good cook, at any rate. And,
      what&rsquo;s more, he can keep him when found. I remember the cooks we had here
      before his time! . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I must have made a movement of impatience, because he interrupted himself
      with an apology for keeping me yarning there, while no doubt I needed all
      my time to get ready.
    </p>
    <p>
      What I really needed was to be alone for a bit. I seized this opening
      hastily. My bedroom was a quiet refuge in an apparently uninhabited wing
      of the building. Having absolutely nothing to do (for I had not unpacked
      my things), I sat down on the bed and abandoned myself to the influences
      of the hour. To the unexpected influences. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      And first I wondered at my state of mind. Why was I not more surprised?
      Why? Here I was, invested with a command in the twinkling of an eye, not
      in the common course of human affairs, but more as if by enchantment. I
      ought to have been lost in astonishment. But I wasn&rsquo;t. I was very much
      like people in fairy tales. Nothing ever astonishes them. When a fully
      appointed gala coach is produced out of a pumpkin to take her to a ball,
      Cinderella does not exclaim. She gets in quietly and drives away to her
      high fortune.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Ellis (a fierce sort of fairy) had produced a command out of a
      drawer almost as unexpectedly as in a fairy tale. But a command is an
      abstract idea, and it seemed a sort of &ldquo;lesser marvel&rdquo; till it flashed
      upon me that it involved the concrete existence of a ship.
    </p>
    <p>
      A ship! My ship! She was mine, more absolutely mine for possession and
      care than anything in the world; an object of responsibility and devotion.
      She was there waiting for me, spell-bound, unable to move, to live, to get
      out into the world (till I came), like an enchanted princess. Her call had
      come to me as if from the clouds. I had never suspected her existence. I
      didn&rsquo;t know how she looked, I had barely heard her name, and yet we were
      indissolubly united for a certain portion of our future, to sink or swim
      together!
    </p>
    <p>
      A sudden passion of anxious impatience rushed through my veins, gave me
      such a sense of the intensity of existence as I have never felt before or
      since. I discovered how much of a seaman I was, in heart, in mind, and, as
      it were, physically&mdash;a man exclusively of sea and ships; the sea the
      only world that counted, and the ships, the test of manliness, of
      temperament, of courage and fidelity&mdash;and of love.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had an exquisite moment. It was unique also. Jumping up from my seat, I
      paced up and down my room for a long time. But when I came downstairs I
      behaved with sufficient composure. Only I couldn&rsquo;t eat anything at dinner.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having declared my intention not to drive but to walk down to the quay, I
      must render the wretched Steward justice that he bestirred himself to find
      me some coolies for the luggage. They departed, carrying all my worldly
      possessions (except a little money I had in my pocket) slung from a long
      pole. Captain Giles volunteered to walk down with me.
    </p>
    <p>
      We followed the sombre, shaded alley across the Esplanade. It was
      moderately cool there under the trees. Captain Giles remarked, with a
      sudden laugh: &ldquo;I know who&rsquo;s jolly thankful at having seen the last of
      you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I guessed that he meant the Steward. The fellow had borne himself to me in
      a sulkily frightened manner at the last. I expressed my wonder that he
      should have tried to do me a bad turn for no reason at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see that what he wanted was to get rid of our friend Hamilton
      by dodging him in front of you for that job? That would have removed him
      for good. See?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; I exclaimed, feeling humiliated somehow. &ldquo;Can it be possible?
      What a fool he must be! That overbearing, impudent loafer! Why! He
      couldn&rsquo;t. . . . And yet he&rsquo;s nearly done it, I believe; for the Harbour
      Office was bound to send somebody.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aye. A fool like our Steward can be dangerous sometimes,&rdquo; declared
      Captain Giles sententiously. &ldquo;Just because he is a fool,&rdquo; he added,
      imparting further instruction in his complacent low tones. &ldquo;For,&rdquo; he
      continued in the manner of a set demonstration, &ldquo;no sensible person would
      risk being kicked out of the only berth between himself and starvation
      just to get rid of a simple annoyance&mdash;a small worry. Would he now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, no,&rdquo; I conceded, restraining a desire to laugh at that something
      mysteriously earnest in delivering the conclusions of his wisdom as though
      it were the product of prohibited operations. &ldquo;But that fellow looks as if
      he were rather crazy. He must be.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As to that, I believe everybody in the world is a little mad,&rdquo; he
      announced quietly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You make no exceptions?&rdquo; I inquired, just to hear his manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why! Kent says that even of you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Does he?&rdquo; I retorted, extremely embittered all at once against my former
      captain. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing of that in the written character from him which
      I&rsquo;ve got in my pocket. Has he given you any instances of my lunacy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Captain Giles explained in a conciliating tone that it had been only a
      friendly remark in reference to my abrupt leaving the ship for no apparent
      reason.
    </p>
    <p>
      I muttered grumpily: &ldquo;Oh! leaving his ship,&rdquo; and mended my pace. He kept
      up by my side in the deep gloom of the avenue as if it were his
      conscientious duty to see me out of the colony as an undesirable
      character. He panted a little, which was rather pathetic in a way. But I
      was not moved. On the contrary. His discomfort gave me a sort of malicious
      pleasure.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presently I relented, slowed down, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What I really wanted was to get a fresh grip. I felt it was time. Is that
      so very mad?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He made no answer. We were issuing from the avenue. On the bridge over the
      canal a dark, irresolute figure seemed to be awaiting something or
      somebody.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a Malay policeman, barefooted, in his blue uniform. The silver band
      on his little round cap shone dimly in the light of the street lamp. He
      peered in our direction timidly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before we could come up to him he turned about and walked in front of us
      in the direction of the jetty. The distance was some hundred yards; and
      then I found my coolies squatting on their heels. They had kept the pole
      on their shoulders, and all my worldly goods, still tied to the pole, were
      resting on the ground between them. As far as the eye could reach along
      the quay there was not another soul abroad except the police peon, who
      saluted us.
    </p>
    <p>
      It seems he had detained the coolies as suspicious characters, and had
      forbidden them the jetty. But at a sign from me he took off the embargo
      with alacrity. The two patient fellows, rising together with a faint
      grunt, trotted off along the planks, and I prepared to take my leave of
      Captain Giles, who stood there with an air as though his mission were
      drawing to a close. It could not be denied that he had done it all. And
      while I hesitated about an appropriate sentence he made himself heard:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I expect you&rsquo;ll have your hands pretty full of tangled-up business.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I asked him what made him think so; and he answered that it was his
      general experience of the world. Ship a long time away from her port,
      owners inaccessible by cable, and the only man who could explain matters
      dead and buried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And you yourself new to the business in a way,&rdquo; he concluded in a sort of
      unanswerable tone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t insist,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I know it only too well. I only wish you could
      impart to me some small portion of your experience before I go. As it
      can&rsquo;t be done in ten minutes I had better not begin to ask you. There&rsquo;s
      that harbour launch waiting for me, too. But I won&rsquo;t feel really at peace
      till I have that ship of mine out in the Indian Ocean.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He remarked casually that from Bangkok to the Indian Ocean was a pretty
      long step. And this murmur, like a dim flash from a dark lantern, showed
      me for a moment the broad belt of islands and reefs between that unknown
      ship, which was mine, and the freedom of the great waters of the globe.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I felt no apprehension. I was familiar enough with the Archipelago by
      that time. Extreme patience and extreme care would see me through the
      region of broken land, of faint airs, and of dead water to where I would
      feel at last my command swing on the great swell and list over to the
      great breath of regular winds, that would give her the feeling of a large,
      more intense life. The road would be long. All roads are long that lead
      toward one&rsquo;s heart&rsquo;s desire. But this road my mind&rsquo;s eye could see on a
      chart, professionally, with all its complications and difficulties, yet
      simple enough in a way. One is a seaman or one is not. And I had no doubt
      of being one.
    </p>
    <p>
      The only part I was a stranger to was the Gulf of Siam. And I mentioned
      this to Captain Giles. Not that I was concerned very much. It belonged to
      the same region the nature of which I knew, into whose very soul I seemed
      to have looked during the last months of that existence with which I had
      broken now, suddenly, as one parts with some enchanting company.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The gulf . . . Ay! A funny piece of water&mdash;that,&rdquo; said Captain
      Giles.
    </p>
    <p>
      Funny, in this connection, was a vague word. The whole thing sounded like
      an opinion uttered by a cautious person mindful of actions for slander.
    </p>
    <p>
      I didn&rsquo;t inquire as to the nature of that funniness. There was really no
      time. But at the very last he volunteered a warning.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Whatever you do keep to the east side of it. The west side is dangerous
      at this time of the year. Don&rsquo;t let anything tempt you over. You&rsquo;ll find
      nothing but trouble there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Though I could hardly imagine what could tempt me to involve my ship
      amongst the currents and reefs of the Malay shore, I thanked him for the
      advice.
    </p>
    <p>
      He gripped my extended arm warmly, and the end of our acquaintance came
      suddenly in the words: &ldquo;Good-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That was all he said: &ldquo;Good-night.&rdquo; Nothing more. I don&rsquo;t know what I
      intended to say, but surprise made me swallow it, whatever it was. I
      choked slightly, and then exclaimed with a sort of nervous haste: &ldquo;Oh!
      Good-night, Captain Giles, good-night.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His movements were always deliberate, but his back had receded some
      distance along the deserted quay before I collected myself enough to
      follow his example and made a half turn in the direction of the jetty.
    </p>
    <p>
      Only my movements were not deliberate. I hurried down to the steps, and
      leaped into the launch. Before I had fairly landed in her sternsheets the
      slim little craft darted away from the jetty with a sudden swirl of her
      propeller and the hard, rapid puffing of the exhaust in her vaguely
      gleaming brass funnel amidships.
    </p>
    <p>
      The misty churning at her stern was the only sound in the world. The shore
      lay plunged in the silence of the deeper slumber. I watched the town
      recede still and soundless in the hot night, till the abrupt hail,
      &ldquo;Steam-launch, ahoy!&rdquo; made me spin round face forward. We were close to a
      white ghostly steamer. Lights shone on her decks, in her portholes. And
      the same voice shouted from her:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is that our passenger?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; I yelled.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her crew had been obviously on the jump. I could hear them running about.
      The modern spirit of haste was loudly vocal in the orders to &ldquo;Heave away
      on the cable&rdquo;&mdash;to &ldquo;Lower the sideladder,&rdquo; and in urgent requests to
      me to &ldquo;Come along, sir! We have been delayed three hours for you. . . .
      Our time is seven o&rsquo;clock, you know!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I stepped on the deck. I said &ldquo;No! I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo; The spirit of modern
      hurry was embodied in a thin, long-armed, long-legged man, with a closely
      clipped gray beard. His meagre hand was hot and dry. He declared
      feverishly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am hanged if I would have waited another five minutes Harbour-Master or
      no Harbour-Master.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s your own business,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t ask you to wait for me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I hope you don&rsquo;t expect any supper,&rdquo; he burst out. &ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t a
      boarding-house afloat. You are the first passenger I ever had in my life
      and I hope to goodness you will be the last.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I made no answer to this hospitable communication; and, indeed, he didn&rsquo;t
      wait for any, bolting away on to his bridge to get his ship under way.
    </p>
    <p>
      The three days he had me on board he did not depart from that half-hostile
      attitude. His ship having been delayed three hours on my account he
      couldn&rsquo;t forgive me for not being a more distinguished person. He was not
      exactly outspoken about it, but that feeling of annoyed wonder was peeping
      out perpetually in his talk.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was absurd.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was also a man of much experience, which he liked to trot out; but no
      greater contrast with Captain Giles could have been imagined. He would
      have amused me if I had wanted to be amused. But I did not want to be
      amused. I was like a lover looking forward to a meeting. Human hostility
      was nothing to me. I thought of my unknown ship. It was amusement enough,
      torment enough, occupation enough.
    </p>
    <p>
      He perceived my state, for his wits were sufficiently sharp for that, and
      he poked sly fun at my preoccupation in the manner some nasty, cynical old
      men assume toward the dreams and illusions of youth. I, on my side,
      refrained from questioning him as to the appearance of my ship, though I
      knew that being in Bangkok every fortnight or so he must have known her by
      sight. I was not going to expose the ship, my ship! to some slighting
      reference.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was the first really unsympathetic man I had ever come in contact with.
      My education was far from being finished, though I didn&rsquo;t know it. No! I
      didn&rsquo;t know it.
    </p>
    <p>
      All I knew was that he disliked me and had some contempt for my person.
      Why? Apparently because his ship had been delayed three hours on my
      account. Who was I to have such a thing done for me? Such a thing had
      never been done for him. It was a sort of jealous indignation.
    </p>
    <p>
      My expectation, mingled with fear, was wrought to its highest pitch. How
      slow had been the days of the passage and how soon they were over. One
      morning, early, we crossed the bar, and while the sun was rising
      splendidly over the flat spaces of the land we steamed up the innumerable
      bends, passed under the shadow of the great gilt pagoda, and reached the
      outskirts of the town.
    </p>
    <p>
      There it was, spread largely on both banks, the Oriental capital which had
      as yet suffered no white conqueror; an expanse of brown houses of bamboo,
      of mats, of leaves, of a vegetable-matter style of architecture, sprung
      out of the brown soil on the banks of the muddy river. It was amazing to
      think that in those miles of human habitations there was not probably half
      a dozen pounds of nails. Some of those houses of sticks and grass, like
      the nests of an aquatic race, clung to the low shores. Others seemed to
      grow out of the water; others again floated in long anchored rows in the
      very middle of the stream. Here and there in the distance, above the
      crowded mob of low, brown roof ridges, towered great piles of masonry,
      King&rsquo;s Palace, temples, gorgeous and dilapidated, crumbling under the
      vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, almost palpable, which seemed
      to enter one&rsquo;s breast with the breath of one&rsquo;s nostrils and soak into
      one&rsquo;s limbs through every pore of one&rsquo;s skin.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ridiculous victim of jealousy had for some reason or other to stop his
      engines just then. The steamer drifted slowly up with the tide. Oblivious
      of my new surroundings I walked the deck, in anxious, deadened
      abstraction, a commingling of romantic reverie with a very practical
      survey of my qualifications. For the time was approaching for me to behold
      my command and to prove my worth in the ultimate test of my profession.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly I heard myself called by that imbecile. He was beckoning me to
      come up on his bridge.
    </p>
    <p>
      I didn&rsquo;t care very much for that, but as it seemed that he had something
      particular to say I went up the ladder.
    </p>
    <p>
      He laid his hand on my shoulder and gave me a slight turn, pointing with
      his other arm at the same time.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There! That&rsquo;s your ship, Captain,&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      I felt a thump in my breast&mdash;only one, as if my heart had then ceased
      to beat. There were ten or more ships moored along the bank, and the one
      he meant was partly hidden away from my sight by her next astern. He said:
      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll drift abreast her in a moment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      What was his tone? Mocking? Threatening? Or only indifferent? I could not
      tell. I suspected some malice in this unexpected manifestation of
      interest.
    </p>
    <p>
      He left me, and I leaned over the rail of the bridge looking over the
      side. I dared not raise my eyes. Yet it had to be done&mdash;and, indeed,
      I could not have helped myself. I believe I trembled.
    </p>
    <p>
      But directly my eyes had rested on my ship all my fear vanished. It went
      off swiftly, like a bad dream. Only that a dream leaves no shame behind
      it, and that I felt a momentary shame at my unworthy suspicions.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, there she was. Her hull, her rigging filled my eye with a great
      content. That feeling of life-emptiness which had made me so restless for
      the last few months lost its bitter plausibility, its evil influence,
      dissolved in a flow of joyous emotion.
    </p>
    <p>
      At first glance I saw that she was a high-class vessel, a harmonious
      creature in the lines of her fine body, in the proportioned tallness of
      her spars. Whatever her age and her history, she had preserved the stamp
      of her origin. She was one of those craft that, in virtue of their design
      and complete finish, will never look old. Amongst her companions moored to
      the bank, and all bigger than herself, she looked like a creature of high
      breed&mdash;an Arab steed in a string of cart-horses.
    </p>
    <p>
      A voice behind me said in a nasty equivocal tone: &ldquo;I hope you are
      satisfied with her, Captain.&rdquo; I did not even turn my head. It was the
      master of the steamer, and whatever he meant, whatever he thought of her,
      I knew that, like some rare women, she was one of those creatures whose
      mere existence is enough to awaken an unselfish delight. One feels that it
      is good to be in the world in which she has her being.
    </p>
    <p>
      That illusion of life and character which charms one in men&rsquo;s finest
      handiwork radiated from her. An enormous bulk of teak-wood timber swung
      over her hatchway; lifeless matter, looking heavier and bigger than
      anything aboard of her. When they started lowering it the surge of the
      tackle sent a quiver through her from water-line to the trucks up the fine
      nerves of her rigging, as though she had shuddered at the weight. It
      seemed cruel to load her so. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      Half an hour later, putting my foot on her deck for the first time, I
      received the feeling of deep physical satisfaction. Nothing could equal
      the fullness of that moment, the ideal completeness of that emotional
      experience which had come to me without the preliminary toil and
      disenchantments of an obscure career.
    </p>
    <p>
      My rapid glance ran over her, enveloped, appropriated the form concreting
      the abstract sentiment of my command. A lot of details perceptible to a
      seaman struck my eye, vividly in that instant. For the rest, I saw her
      disengaged from the material conditions of her being. The shore to which
      she was moored was as if it did not exist. What were to me all the
      countries of the globe? In all the parts of the world washed by navigable
      waters our relation to each other would be the same&mdash;and more
      intimate than there are words to express in the language. Apart from that,
      every scene and episode would be a mere passing show. The very gang of
      yellow coolies busy about the main hatch was less substantial than the
      stuff dreams are made of. For who on earth would dream of Chinamen? . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      I went aft, ascended the poop, where, under the awning, gleamed the
      brasses of the yacht-like fittings, the polished surfaces of the rails,
      the glass of the skylights. Right aft two seamen, busy cleaning the
      steering gear, with the reflected ripples of light running playfully up
      their bent backs, went on with their work, unaware of me and of the almost
      affectionate glance I threw at them in passing toward the companion-way of
      the cabin.
    </p>
    <p>
      The doors stood wide open, the slide was pushed right back. The half-turn
      of the staircase cut off the view of the lobby. A low humming ascended
      from below, but it stopped abruptly at the sound of my descending
      footsteps.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      III
    </h2>
    <p>
      The first thing I saw down there was the upper part of a man&rsquo;s body
      projecting backward, as it were, from one of the doors at the foot of the
      stairs. His eyes looked at me very wide and still. In one hand he held a
      dinner plate, in the other a cloth.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am your new Captain,&rdquo; I said quietly.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he had got rid of the plate and
      the cloth and jumped to open the cabin door. As soon as I passed into the
      saloon he vanished, but only to reappear instantly, buttoning up a jacket
      he had put on with the swiftness of a &ldquo;quick-change&rdquo; artist.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the chief mate?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In the hold, I think, sir. I saw him go down the after-hatch ten minutes
      ago.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tell him I am on board.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The mahogany table under the skylight shone in the twilight like a dark
      pool of water. The sideboard, surmounted by a wide looking-glass in an
      ormulu frame, had a marble top. It bore a pair of silver-plated lamps and
      some other pieces&mdash;obviously a harbour display. The saloon itself was
      panelled in two kinds of wood in the excellent simple taste prevailing
      when the ship was built.
    </p>
    <p>
      I sat down in the armchair at the head of the table&mdash;the captain&rsquo;s
      chair, with a small tell-tale compass swung above it&mdash;a mute reminder
      of unremitting vigilance.
    </p>
    <p>
      A succession of men had sat in that chair. I became aware of that thought
      suddenly, vividly, as though each had left a little of himself between the
      four walls of these ornate bulkheads; as if a sort of composite soul, the
      soul of command, had whispered suddenly to mine of long days at sea and of
      anxious moments.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You, too!&rdquo; it seemed to say, &ldquo;you, too, shall taste of that peace and
      that unrest in a searching intimacy with your own self&mdash;obscure as we
      were and as supreme in the face of all the winds and all the seas, in an
      immensity that receives no impress, preserves no memories, and keeps no
      reckoning of lives.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Deep within the tarnished ormulu frame, in the hot half-light sifted
      through the awning, I saw my own face propped between my hands. And I
      stared back at myself with the perfect detachment of distance, rather with
      curiosity than with any other feeling, except of some sympathy for this
      latest representative of what for all intents and purposes was a dynasty,
      continuous not in blood indeed, but in its experience, in its training, in
      its conception of duty, and in the blessed simplicity of its traditional
      point of view on life.
    </p>
    <p>
      It struck me that this quietly staring man whom I was watching, both as if
      he were myself and somebody else, was not exactly a lonely figure. He had
      his place in a line of men whom he did not know, of whom he had never
      heard; but who were fashioned by the same influences, whose souls in
      relation to their humble life&rsquo;s work had no secrets for him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly I perceived that there was another man in the saloon, standing a
      little on one side and looking intently at me. The chief mate. His long,
      red moustache determined the character of his physiognomy, which struck me
      as pugnacious in (strange to say) a ghastly sort of way.
    </p>
    <p>
      How long had he been there looking at me, appraising me in my unguarded
      day-dreaming state? I would have been more disconcerted if, having the
      clock set in the top of the mirror-frame right in front of me, I had not
      noticed that its long hand had hardly moved at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      I could not have been in that cabin more than two minutes altogether. Say
      three. . . . So he could not have been watching me more than a mere
      fraction of a minute, luckily. Still, I regretted the occurrence.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I showed nothing of it as I rose leisurely (it had to be leisurely)
      and greeted him with perfect friendliness.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was something reluctant and at the same time attentive in his
      bearing. His name was Burns. We left the cabin and went round the ship
      together. His face in the full light of day appeared very pale, meagre,
      even haggard. Somehow I had a delicacy as to looking too often at him; his
      eyes, on the contrary, remained fairly glued on my face. They were
      greenish and had an expectant expression.
    </p>
    <p>
      He answered all my questions readily enough, but my ear seemed to catch a
      tone of unwillingness. The second officer, with three or four hands, was
      busy forward. The mate mentioned his name and I nodded to him in passing.
      He was very young. He struck me as rather a cub.
    </p>
    <p>
      When we returned below, I sat down on one end of a deep, semi-circular,
      or, rather, semi-oval settee, upholstered in red plush. It extended right
      across the whole after-end of the cabin. Mr. Burns motioned to sit down,
      dropped into one of the swivel-chairs round the table, and kept his eyes
      on me as persistently as ever, and with that strange air as if all this
      were make-believe and he expected me to get up, burst into a laugh, slap
      him on the back, and vanish from the cabin.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was an odd stress in the situation which began to make me
      uncomfortable. I tried to react against this vague feeling.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only my inexperience,&rdquo; I thought.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the face of that man, several years, I judged, older than myself, I
      became aware of what I had left already behind me&mdash;my youth. And that
      was indeed poor comfort. Youth is a fine thing, a mighty power&mdash;as
      long as one does not think of it. I felt I was becoming self-conscious.
      Almost against my will I assumed a moody gravity. I said: &ldquo;I see you have
      kept her in very good order, Mr. Burns.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Directly I had uttered these words I asked myself angrily why the deuce
      did I want to say that? Mr. Burns in answer had only blinked at me. What
      on earth did he mean?
    </p>
    <p>
      I fell back on a question which had been in my thoughts for a long time&mdash;the
      most natural question on the lips of any seaman whatever joining a ship. I
      voiced it (confound this self-consciousness) in a degaged cheerful tone:
      &ldquo;I suppose she can travel&mdash;what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Now a question like this might have been answered normally, either in
      accents of apologetic sorrow or with a visibly suppressed pride, in a &ldquo;I
      don&rsquo;t want to boast, but you shall see,&rdquo; sort of tone. There are sailors,
      too, who would have been roughly outspoken: &ldquo;Lazy brute,&rdquo; or openly
      delighted: &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a flyer.&rdquo; Two ways, if four manners.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Mr. Burns found another way, a way of his own which had, at all
      events, the merit of saving his breath, if no other.
    </p>
    <p>
      Again he did not say anything. He only frowned. And it was an angry frown.
      I waited. Nothing more came.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter? . . . Can&rsquo;t you tell after being nearly two years in
      the ship?&rdquo; I addressed him sharply.
    </p>
    <p>
      He looked as startled for a moment as though he had discovered my presence
      only that very moment. But this passed off almost at once. He put on an
      air of indifference. But I suppose he thought it better to say something.
      He said that a ship needed, just like a man, the chance to show the best
      she could do, and that this ship had never had a chance since he had been
      on board of her. Not that he could remember. The last captain. . . . He
      paused.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Has he been so very unlucky?&rdquo; I asked with frank incredulity. Mr. Burns
      turned his eyes away from me. No, the late captain was not an unlucky man.
      One couldn&rsquo;t say that. But he had not seemed to want to make use of his
      luck.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns&mdash;man of enigmatic moods&mdash;made this statement with an
      inanimate face and staring wilfully at the rudder casing. The statement
      itself was obscurely suggestive. I asked quietly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where did he die?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In this saloon. Just where you are sitting now,&rdquo; answered Mr. Burns.
    </p>
    <p>
      I repressed a silly impulse to jump up; but upon the whole I was relieved
      to hear that he had not died in the bed which was now to be mine. I
      pointed out to the chief mate that what I really wanted to know was where
      he had buried his late captain.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns said that it was at the entrance to the gulf. A roomy grave; a
      sufficient answer. But the mate, overcoming visibly something within him&mdash;something
      like a curious reluctance to believe in my advent (as an irrevocable fact,
      at any rate), did not stop at that&mdash;though, indeed, he may have
      wished to do so.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a compromise with his feelings, I believe, he addressed himself
      persistently to the rudder-casing, so that to me he had the appearance of
      a man talking in solitude, a little unconsciously, however.
    </p>
    <p>
      His tale was that at seven bells in the forenoon watch he had all hands
      mustered on the quarterdeck and told them they had better go down to say
      good-bye to the captain.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those words, as if grudged to an intruding personage, were enough for me
      to evoke vividly that strange ceremony: The bare-footed, bare-headed
      seamen crowding shyly into that cabin, a small mob pressed against that
      sideboard, uncomfortable rather than moved, shirts open on sunburnt
      chests, weather-beaten faces, and all staring at the dying man with the
      same grave and expectant expression.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was he conscious?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t speak, but he moved his eyes to look at them,&rdquo; said the mate.
    </p>
    <p>
      After waiting a moment, Mr. Burns motioned the crew to leave the cabin,
      but he detained the two eldest men to stay with the captain while he went
      on deck with his sextant to &ldquo;take the sun.&rdquo; It was getting toward noon and
      he was anxious to obtain a good observation for latitude. When he returned
      below to put his sextant away he found that the two men had retreated out
      into the lobby. Through the open door he had a view of the captain lying
      easy against the pillows. He had &ldquo;passed away&rdquo; while Mr. Burns was taking
      this observation. As near noon as possible. He had hardly changed his
      position.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns sighed, glanced at me inquisitively, as much as to say, &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t
      you going yet?&rdquo; and then turned his thoughts from his new captain back to
      the old, who, being dead, had no authority, was not in anybody&rsquo;s way, and
      was much easier to deal with.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns dealt with him at some length. He was a peculiar man&mdash;of
      sixty-five about&mdash;iron gray, hard-faced, obstinate, and
      uncommunicative. He used to keep the ship loafing at sea for inscrutable
      reasons. Would come on deck at night sometimes, take some sail off her,
      God only knows why or wherefore, then go below, shut himself up in his
      cabin, and play on the violin for hours&mdash;till daybreak perhaps. In
      fact, he spent most of his time day or night playing the violin. That was
      when the fit took him. Very loud, too.
    </p>
    <p>
      It came to this, that Mr. Burns mustered his courage one day and
      remonstrated earnestly with the captain. Neither he nor the second mate
      could get a wink of sleep in their watches below for the noise. . . . And
      how could they be expected to keep awake while on duty? He pleaded. The
      answer of that stern man was that if he and the second mate didn&rsquo;t like
      the noise, they were welcome to pack up their traps and walk over the
      side. When this alternative was offered the ship happened to be 600 miles
      from the nearest land.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns at this point looked at me with an air of curiosity. I began to
      think that my predecessor was a remarkably peculiar old man.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I had to hear stranger things yet. It came out that this stern, grim,
      wind-tanned, rough, sea-salted, taciturn sailor of sixty-five was not only
      an artist, but a lover as well. In Haiphong, when they got there after a
      course of most unprofitable peregrinations (during which the ship was
      nearly lost twice), he got himself, in Mr. Burns&rsquo; own words, &ldquo;mixed up&rdquo;
       with some woman. Mr. Burns had had no personal knowledge of that affair,
      but positive evidence of it existed in the shape of a photograph taken in
      Haiphong. Mr. Burns found it in one of the drawers in the captain&rsquo;s room.
    </p>
    <p>
      In due course I, too, saw that amazing human document (I even threw it
      overboard later). There he sat, with his hands reposing on his knees,
      bald, squat, gray, bristly, recalling a wild boar somehow; and by his side
      towered an awful mature, white female with rapacious nostrils and a
      cheaply ill-omened stare in her enormous eyes. She was disguised in some
      semi-oriental, vulgar, fancy costume. She resembled a low-class medium or
      one of those women who tell fortunes by cards for half a crown. And yet
      she was striking. A professional sorceress from the slums. It was
      incomprehensible. There was something awful in the thought that she was
      the last reflection of the world of passion for the fierce soul which
      seemed to look at one out of the sardonically savage face of that old
      seaman. However, I noticed that she was holding some musical instrument&mdash;guitar
      or mandoline&mdash;in her hand. Perhaps that was the secret of her
      sortilege.
    </p>
    <p>
      For Mr. Burns that photograph explained why the unloaded ship had kept
      sweltering at anchor for three weeks in a pestilential hot harbour without
      air. They lay there and gasped. The captain, appearing now and then on
      short visits, mumbled to Mr. Burns unlikely tales about some letters he
      was waiting for.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly, after vanishing for a week, he came on board in the middle of
      the night and took the ship out to sea with the first break of dawn.
      Daylight showed him looking wild and ill. The mere getting clear of the
      land took two days, and somehow or other they bumped slightly on a reef.
      However, no leak developed, and the captain, growling &ldquo;no matter,&rdquo;
       informed Mr. Burns that he had made up his mind to take the ship to
      Hong-Kong and drydock her there.
    </p>
    <p>
      At this Mr. Burns was plunged into despair. For indeed, to beat up to
      Hong-Kong against a fierce monsoon, with a ship not sufficiently ballasted
      and with her supply of water not completed, was an insane project.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the captain growled peremptorily, &ldquo;Stick her at it,&rdquo; and Mr. Burns,
      dismayed and enraged, stuck her at it, and kept her at it, blowing away
      sails, straining the spars, exhausting the crew&mdash;nearly maddened by
      the absolute conviction that the attempt was impossible and was bound to
      end in some catastrophe.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meantime the captain, shut up in his cabin and wedged in a corner of his
      settee against the crazy bounding of the ship, played the violin&mdash;or,
      at any rate, made continuous noise on it.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he appeared on deck he would not speak and not always answer when
      spoken to. It was obvious that he was ill in some mysterious manner, and
      beginning to break up.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the days went by the sounds of the violin became less and less loud,
      till at last only a feeble scratching would meet Mr. Burns&rsquo; ear as he
      stood in the saloon listening outside the door of the captain&rsquo;s
      state-room.
    </p>
    <p>
      One afternoon in perfect desperation he burst into that room and made such
      a scene, tearing his hair and shouting such horrid imprecations that he
      cowed the contemptuous spirit of the sick man. The water-tanks were low,
      they had not gained fifty miles in a fortnight. She would never reach
      Hong-Kong.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was like fighting desperately toward destruction for the ship and the
      men. This was evident without argument. Mr. Burns, losing all restraint,
      put his face close to his captain&rsquo;s and fairly yelled: &ldquo;You, sir, are
      going out of the world. But I can&rsquo;t wait till you are dead before I put
      the helm up. You must do it yourself. You must do it now!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The man on the couch snarled in contempt. &ldquo;So I am going out of the world&mdash;am
      I?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir&mdash;you haven&rsquo;t many days left in it,&rdquo; said Mr. Burns calming
      down. &ldquo;One can see it by your face.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My face, eh? . . . Well, put up the helm and be damned to you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Burns flew on deck, got the ship before the wind, then came down again
      composed, but resolute.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve shaped a course for Pulo Condor, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When we make it, if
      you are still with us, you&rsquo;ll tell me into what port you wish me to take
      the ship and I&rsquo;ll do it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The old man gave him a look of savage spite, and said those atrocious
      words in deadly, slow tones.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I had my wish, neither the ship nor any of you would ever reach a
      port. And I hope you won&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns was profoundly shocked. I believe he was positively frightened
      at the time. It seems, however, that he managed to produce such an
      effective laugh that it was the old man&rsquo;s turn to be frightened. He shrank
      within himself and turned his back on him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And his head was not gone then,&rdquo; Mr. Burns assured me excitedly. &ldquo;He
      meant every word of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Such was practically the late captain&rsquo;s last speech. No connected
      sentence passed his lips afterward. That night he used the last of his
      strength to throw his fiddle over the side. No one had actually seen him
      in the act, but after his death Mr. Burns couldn&rsquo;t find the thing
      anywhere. The empty case was very much in evidence, but the fiddle was
      clearly not in the ship. And where else could it have gone to but
      overboard?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Threw his violin overboard!&rdquo; I exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He did,&rdquo; cried Mr. Burns excitedly. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s my belief he would have
      tried to take the ship down with him if it had been in human power. He
      never meant her to see home again. He wouldn&rsquo;t write to his owners, he
      never wrote to his old wife, either&mdash;he wasn&rsquo;t going to. He had made
      up his mind to cut adrift from everything. That&rsquo;s what it was. He didn&rsquo;t
      care for business, or freights, or for making a passage&mdash;or anything.
      He meant to have gone wandering about the world till he lost her with all
      hands.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns looked like a man who had escaped great danger. For a little he
      would have exclaimed: &ldquo;If it hadn&rsquo;t been for me!&rdquo; And the transparent
      innocence of his indignant eyes was underlined quaintly by the arrogant
      pair of moustaches which he proceeded to twist, and as if extend,
      horizontally.
    </p>
    <p>
      I might have smiled if I had not been busy with my own sensations, which
      were not those of Mr. Burns. I was already the man in command. My
      sensations could not be like those of any other man on board. In that
      community I stood, like a king in his country, in a class all by myself. I
      mean an hereditary king, not a mere elected head of a state. I was brought
      there to rule by an agency as remote from the people and as inscrutable
      almost to them as the Grace of God.
    </p>
    <p>
      And like a member of a dynasty, feeling a semimystical bond with the dead,
      I was profoundly shocked by my immediate predecessor.
    </p>
    <p>
      That man had been in all essentials but his age just such another man as
      myself. Yet the end of his life was a complete act of treason, the
      betrayal of a tradition which seemed to me as imperative as any guide on
      earth could be. It appeared that even at sea a man could become the victim
      of evil spirits. I felt on my face the breath of unknown powers that shape
      our destinies.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not to let the silence last too long I asked Mr. Burns if he had written
      to his captain&rsquo;s wife. He shook his head. He had written to nobody.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a moment he became sombre. He never thought of writing. It took him all
      his time to watch incessantly the loading of the ship by a rascally
      Chinese stevedore. In this Mr. Burns gave me the first glimpse of the real
      chief mate&rsquo;s soul which dwelt uneasily in his body.
    </p>
    <p>
      He mused, then hastened on with gloomy force.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes! The captain died as near noon as possible. I looked through his
      papers in the afternoon. I read the service over him at sunset and then I
      stuck the ship&rsquo;s head north and brought her in here. I&mdash;brought&mdash;her&mdash;in.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He struck the table with his fist.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She would hardly have come in by herself,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;But why didn&rsquo;t
      you make for Singapore instead?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His eyes wavered. &ldquo;The nearest port,&rdquo; he muttered sullenly.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had framed the question in perfect innocence, but his answer (the
      difference in distance was insignificant) and his manner offered me a clue
      to the simple truth. He took the ship to a port where he expected to be
      confirmed in his temporary command from lack of a qualified master to put
      over his head. Whereas Singapore, he surmised justly, would be full of
      qualified men. But his naive reasoning forgot to take into account the
      telegraph cable reposing on the bottom of the very Gulf up which he had
      turned that ship which he imagined himself to have saved from destruction.
      Hence the bitter flavour of our interview. I tasted it more and more
      distinctly&mdash;and it was less and less to my taste.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here, Mr. Burns,&rdquo; I began very firmly. &ldquo;You may as well understand
      that I did not run after this command. It was pushed in my way. I&rsquo;ve
      accepted it. I am here to take the ship home first of all, and you may be
      sure that I shall see to it that every one of you on board here does his
      duty to that end. This is all I have to say&mdash;for the present.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was on his feet by this time, but instead of taking his dismissal he
      remained with trembling, indignant lips, and looking at me hard as though,
      really, after this, there was nothing for me to do in common decency but
      to vanish from his outraged sight. Like all very simple emotional states
      this was moving. I felt sorry for him&mdash;almost sympathetic, till
      (seeing that I did not vanish) he spoke in a tone of forced restraint.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I hadn&rsquo;t a wife and a child at home you may be sure, sir, I would have
      asked you to let me go the very minute you came on board.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I answered him with a matter-of-course calmness as though some remote
      third person were in question.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And I, Mr. Burns, would not have let you go. You have signed the ship&rsquo;s
      articles as chief officer, and till they are terminated at the final port
      of discharge I shall expect you to attend to your duty and give me the
      benefit of your experience to the best of your ability.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Stony incredulity lingered in his eyes: but it broke down before my
      friendly attitude. With a slight upward toss of his arms (I got to know
      that gesture well afterward) he bolted out of the cabin.
    </p>
    <p>
      We might have saved ourselves that little passage of harmless sparring.
      Before many days had elapsed it was Mr. Burns who was pleading with me
      anxiously not to leave him behind; while I could only return him but
      doubtful answers. The whole thing took on a somewhat tragic complexion.
    </p>
    <p>
      And this horrible problem was only an extraneous episode, a mere
      complication in the general problem of how to get that ship&mdash;which
      was mine with her appurtenances and her men, with her body and her spirit
      now slumbering in that pestilential river&mdash;how to get her out to sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns, while still acting captain, had hastened to sign a
      charter-party which in an ideal world without guile would have been an
      excellent document. Directly I ran my eye over it I foresaw trouble ahead
      unless the people of the other part were quite exceptionally fair-minded
      and open to argument.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns, to whom I imparted my fears, chose to take great umbrage at
      them. He looked at me with that usual incredulous stare, and said
      bitterly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose, sir, you want to make out I&rsquo;ve acted like a fool?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I told him, with my systematic kindliness which always seemed to augment
      his surprise, that I did not want to make out anything. I would leave that
      to the future.
    </p>
    <p>
      And, sure enough, the future brought in a lot of trouble. There were days
      when I used to remember Captain Giles with nothing short of abhorrence.
      His confounded acuteness had let me in for this job; while his prophecy
      that I &ldquo;would have my hands full&rdquo; coming true, made it appear as if done
      on purpose to play an evil joke on my young innocence.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes. I had my hands full of complications which were most valuable as
      &ldquo;experience.&rdquo; People have a great opinion of the advantages of experience.
      But in this connection experience means always something disagreeable as
      opposed to the charm and innocence of illusions.
    </p>
    <p>
      I must say I was losing mine rapidly. But on these instructive
      complications I must not enlarge more than to say that they could all be
      resumed in the one word: Delay.
    </p>
    <p>
      A mankind which has invented the proverb, &ldquo;Time is money,&rdquo; will understand
      my vexation. The word &ldquo;Delay&rdquo; entered the secret chamber of my brain,
      resounded there like a tolling bell which maddens the ear, affected all my
      senses, took on a black colouring, a bitter taste, a deadly meaning.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am really sorry to see you worried like this. Indeed, I am. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was the only humane speech I used to hear at that time. And it came
      from a doctor, appropriately enough.
    </p>
    <p>
      A doctor is humane by definition. But that man was so in reality. His
      speech was not professional. I was not ill. But other people were, and
      that was the reason of his visiting the ship.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was the doctor of our Legation and, of course, of the Consulate, too.
      He looked after the ship&rsquo;s health, which generally was poor, and
      trembling, as it were, on the verge of a break-up. Yes. The men ailed. And
      thus time was not only money, but life as well.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had never seen such a steady ship&rsquo;s company. As the doctor remarked to
      me: &ldquo;You seem to have a most respectable lot of seamen.&rdquo; Not only were
      they consistently sober, but they did not even want to go ashore. Care was
      taken to expose them as little as possible to the sun. They were employed
      on light work under the awnings. And the humane doctor commended me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Your arrangements appear to me to be very judicious, my dear Captain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It is difficult to express how much that pronouncement comforted me. The
      doctor&rsquo;s round, full face framed in a light-coloured whisker was the
      perfection of a dignified amenity. He was the only human being in the
      world who seemed to take the slightest interest in me. He would generally
      sit in the cabin for half an hour or so at every visit.
    </p>
    <p>
      I said to him one day:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose the only thing now is to take care of them as you are doing
      till I can get the ship to sea?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He inclined his head, shutting his eyes under the large spectacles, and
      murmured:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The sea . . . undoubtedly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The first member of the crew fairly knocked over was the steward&mdash;the
      first man to whom I had spoken on board. He was taken ashore (with
      choleric symptoms) and died there at the end of a week. Then, while I was
      still under the startling impression of this first home-thrust of the
      climate, Mr. Burns gave up and went to bed in a raging fever without
      saying a word to anybody.
    </p>
    <p>
      I believe he had partly fretted himself into that illness; the climate did
      the rest with the swiftness of an invisible monster ambushed in the air,
      in the water, in the mud of the river-bank. Mr. Burns was a predestined
      victim.
    </p>
    <p>
      I discovered him lying on his back, glaring sullenly and radiating heat on
      one like a small furnace. He would hardly answer my questions, and only
      grumbled. Couldn&rsquo;t a man take an afternoon off duty with a bad headache&mdash;for
      once?
    </p>
    <p>
      That evening, as I sat in the saloon after dinner, I could hear him
      muttering continuously in his room. Ransome, who was clearing the table,
      said to me:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am afraid, sir, I won&rsquo;t be able to give the mate all the attention he&rsquo;s
      likely to need. I will have to be forward in the galley a great part of my
      time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ransome was the cook. The mate had pointed him out to me the first day,
      standing on the deck, his arms crossed on his broad chest, gazing on the
      river.
    </p>
    <p>
      Even at a distance his well-proportioned figure, something thoroughly
      sailor-like in his poise, made him noticeable. On nearer view the
      intelligent, quiet eyes, a well-bred face, the disciplined independence of
      his manner made up an attractive personality. When, in addition, Mr. Burns
      told me that he was the best seaman in the ship, I expressed my surprise
      that in his earliest prime and of such appearance he should sign on as
      cook on board a ship.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s his heart,&rdquo; Mr. Burns had said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something wrong with it. He
      mustn&rsquo;t exert himself too much or he may drop dead suddenly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And he was the only one the climate had not touched&mdash;perhaps because,
      carrying a deadly enemy in his breast, he had schooled himself into a
      systematic control of feelings and movements. When one was in the secret
      this was apparent in his manner. After the poor steward died, and as he
      could not be replaced by a white man in this Oriental port, Ransome had
      volunteered to do the double work.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can do it all right, sir, as long as I go about it quietly,&rdquo; he had
      assured me.
    </p>
    <p>
      But obviously he couldn&rsquo;t be expected to take up sick-nursing in addition.
      Moreover, the doctor peremptorily ordered Mr. Burns ashore.
    </p>
    <p>
      With a seaman on each side holding him up under the arms, the mate went
      over the gangway more sullen than ever. We built him up with pillows in
      the gharry, and he made an effort to say brokenly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now&mdash;you&rsquo;ve got&mdash;what you wanted&mdash;got me out of&mdash;the
      ship.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You were never more mistaken in your life, Mr. Burns,&rdquo; I said quietly,
      duly smiling at him; and the trap drove off to a sort of sanatorium, a
      pavilion of bricks which the doctor had in the grounds of his residence.
    </p>
    <p>
      I visited Mr. Burns regularly. After the first few days, when he didn&rsquo;t
      know anybody, he received me as if I had come either to gloat over an
      enemy or else to curry favour with a deeply wronged person. It was either
      one or the other, just as it happened according to his fantastic sickroom
      moods. Whichever it was, he managed to convey it to me even during the
      period when he appeared almost too weak to talk. I treated him to my
      invariable kindliness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then one day, suddenly, a surge of downright panic burst through all this
      craziness.
    </p>
    <p>
      If I left him behind in this deadly place he would die. He felt it, he was
      certain of it. But I wouldn&rsquo;t have the heart to leave him ashore. He had a
      wife and child in Sydney.
    </p>
    <p>
      He produced his wasted forearms from under the sheet which covered him and
      clasped his fleshless claws. He would die! He would die here. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      He absolutely managed to sit up, but only for a moment, and when he fell
      back I really thought that he would die there and then. I called to the
      Bengali dispenser, and hastened away from the room.
    </p>
    <p>
      Next day he upset me thoroughly by renewing his entreaties. I returned an
      evasive answer, and left him the picture of ghastly despair. The day after
      I went in with reluctance, and he attacked me at once in a much stronger
      voice and with an abundance of argument which was quite startling. He
      presented his case with a sort of crazy vigour, and asked me finally how
      would I like to have a man&rsquo;s death on my conscience? He wanted me to
      promise that I would not sail without him.
    </p>
    <p>
      I said that I really must consult the doctor first. He cried out at that.
      The doctor! Never! That would be a death sentence.
    </p>
    <p>
      The effort had exhausted him. He closed his eyes, but went on rambling in
      a low voice. I had hated him from the start. The late captain had hated
      him, too. Had wished him dead. Had wished all hands dead. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do you want to stand in with that wicked corpse for, sir? He&rsquo;ll have
      you, too,&rdquo; he ended, blinking his glazed eyes vacantly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Burns,&rdquo; I cried, very much discomposed, &ldquo;what on earth are you
      talking about?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He seemed to come to himself, though he was too weak to start.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; he said languidly. &ldquo;But don&rsquo;t ask that doctor, sir. You
      and I are sailors. Don&rsquo;t ask him, sir. Some day perhaps you will have a
      wife and child yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And again he pleaded for the promise that I would not leave him behind. I
      had the firmness of mind not to give it to him. Afterward this sternness
      seemed criminal; for my mind was made up. That prostrated man, with hardly
      strength enough to breathe and ravaged by a passion of fear, was
      irresistible. And, besides, he had happened to hit on the right words. He
      and I were sailors. That was a claim, for I had no other family. As to the
      wife and child (some day) argument, it had no force. It sounded merely
      bizarre.
    </p>
    <p>
      I could imagine no claim that would be stronger and more absorbing than
      the claim of that ship, of these men snared in the river by silly
      commercial complications, as if in some poisonous trap.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, I had nearly fought my way out. Out to sea. The sea&mdash;which
      was pure, safe, and friendly. Three days more.
    </p>
    <p>
      That thought sustained and carried me on my way back to the ship. In the
      saloon the doctor&rsquo;s voice greeted me, and his large form followed his
      voice, issuing out of the starboard spare cabin where the ship&rsquo;s medicine
      chest was kept securely lashed in the bed-place.
    </p>
    <p>
      Finding that I was not on board he had gone in there, he said, to inspect
      the supply of drugs, bandages, and so on. Everything was completed and in
      order.
    </p>
    <p>
      I thanked him; I had just been thinking of asking him to do that very
      thing, as in a couple of days, as he knew, we were going to sea, where all
      our troubles of every sort would be over at last.
    </p>
    <p>
      He listened gravely and made no answer. But when I opened to him my mind
      as to Mr. Burns he sat down by my side, and, laying his hand on my knee
      amicably, begged me to think what it was I was exposing myself to.
    </p>
    <p>
      The man was just strong enough to bear being moved and no more. But he
      couldn&rsquo;t stand a return of the fever. I had before me a passage of sixty
      days perhaps, beginning with intricate navigation and ending probably with
      a lot of bad weather. Could I run the risk of having to go through it
      single-handed, with no chief officer and with a second quite a youth? . .
      .
    </p>
    <p>
      He might have added that it was my first command, too. He did probably
      think of that fact, for he checked himself. It was very present to my
      mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      He advised me earnestly to cable to Singapore for a chief officer, even if
      I had to delay my sailing for a week.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; I said. The very thought gave me the shivers. The hands seemed
      fairly fit, all of them, and this was the time to get them away. Once at
      sea I was not afraid of facing anything. The sea was now the only remedy
      for all my troubles.
    </p>
    <p>
      The doctor&rsquo;s glasses were directed at me like two lamps searching the
      genuineness of my resolution. He opened his lips as if to argue further,
      but shut them again without saying anything. I had a vision so vivid of
      poor Burns in his exhaustion, helplessness, and anguish, that it moved me
      more than the reality I had come away from only an hour before. It was
      purged from the drawbacks of his personality, and I could not resist it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Unless you tell me officially that the man must not
      be moved I&rsquo;ll make arrangements to have him brought on board tomorrow, and
      shall take the ship out of the river next morning, even if I have to
      anchor outside the bar for a couple of days to get her ready for sea.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;ll make all the arrangements myself,&rdquo; said the doctor at once. &ldquo;I
      spoke as I did only as a friend&mdash;as a well-wisher, and that sort of
      thing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He rose in his dignified simplicity and gave me a warm handshake, rather
      solemnly, I thought. But he was as good as his word. When Mr. Burns
      appeared at the gangway carried on a stretcher, the doctor himself walked
      by its side. The programme had been altered in so far that this
      transportation had been left to the last moment, on the very morning of
      our departure.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was barely an hour after sunrise. The doctor waved his big arm to me
      from the shore and walked back at once to his trap, which had followed him
      empty to the river-side. Mr. Burns, carried across the quarter-deck, had
      the appearance of being absolutely lifeless. Ransome went down to settle
      him in his cabin. I had to remain on deck to look after the ship, for the
      tug had got hold of our towrope already.
    </p>
    <p>
      The splash of our shore-fasts falling in the water produced a complete
      change of feeling in me. It was like the imperfect relief of awakening
      from a nightmare. But when the ship&rsquo;s head swung down the river away from
      that town, Oriental and squalid, I missed the expected elation of that
      striven-for moment. What there was, undoubtedly, was a relaxation of
      tension which translated itself into a sense of weariness after an
      inglorious fight.
    </p>
    <p>
      About midday we anchored a mile outside the bar. The afternoon was busy
      for all hands. Watching the work from the poop, where I remained all the
      time, I detected in it some of the languor of the six weeks spent in the
      steaming heat of the river. The first breeze would blow that away. Now the
      calm was complete. I judged that the second officer&mdash;a callow youth
      with an unpromising face&mdash;was not, to put it mildly, of that
      invaluable stuff from which a commander&rsquo;s right hand is made. But I was
      glad to catch along the main deck a few smiles on those seamen&rsquo;s faces at
      which I had hardly had time to have a good look as yet. Having thrown off
      the mortal coil of shore affairs, I felt myself familiar with them and yet
      a little strange, like a long-lost wanderer among his kin.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ransome flitted continually to and fro between the galley and the cabin.
      It was a pleasure to look at him. The man positively had grace. He alone
      of all the crew had not had a day&rsquo;s illness in port. But with the
      knowledge of that uneasy heart within his breast I could detect the
      restraint he put on the natural sailor-like agility of his movements. It
      was as though he had something very fragile or very explosive to carry
      about his person and was all the time aware of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had occasion to address him once or twice. He answered me in his
      pleasant, quiet voice and with a faint, slightly wistful smile. Mr. Burns
      appeared to be resting. He seemed fairly comfortable.
    </p>
    <p>
      After sunset I came out on deck again to meet only a still void. The thin,
      featureless crust of the coast could not be distinguished. The darkness
      had risen around the ship like a mysterious emanation from the dumb and
      lonely waters. I leaned on the rail and turned my ear to the shadows of
      the night. Not a sound. My command might have been a planet flying
      vertiginously on its appointed path in a space of infinite silence. I
      clung to the rail as if my sense of balance were leaving me for good. How
      absurd. I failed nervously.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;On deck there!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The immediate answer, &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; broke the spell. The anchor-watch man
      ran up the poop ladder smartly. I told him to report at once the slightest
      sign of a breeze coming.
    </p>
    <p>
      Going below I looked in on Mr. Burns. In fact, I could not avoid seeing
      him, for his door stood open. The man was so wasted that, in this white
      cabin, under a white sheet, and with his diminished head sunk in the white
      pillow, his red moustaches captured their eyes exclusively, like something
      artificial&mdash;a pair of moustaches from a shop exhibited there in the
      harsh light of the bulkhead-lamp without a shade.
    </p>
    <p>
      While I stared with a sort of wonder he asserted himself by opening his
      eyes and even moving them in my direction. A minute stir.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dead calm, Mr. Burns,&rdquo; I said resignedly.
    </p>
    <p>
      In an unexpectedly distinct voice Mr. Burns began a rambling speech. Its
      tone was very strange, not as if affected by his illness, but as if of a
      different nature. It sounded unearthly. As to the matter, I seemed to make
      out that it was the fault of the &ldquo;old man&rdquo;&mdash;the late captain&mdash;ambushed
      down there under the sea with some evil intention. It was a weird story.
    </p>
    <p>
      I listened to the end; then stepping into the cabin I laid my hand on the
      mate&rsquo;s forehead. It was cool. He was light-headed only from extreme
      weakness. Suddenly he seemed to become aware of me, and in his own voice&mdash;of
      course, very feeble&mdash;he asked regretfully:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is there no chance at all to get under way, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the good of letting go our hold of the ground only to drift, Mr.
      Burns?&rdquo; I answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      He sighed and I left him to his immobility. His hold on life was as
      slender as his hold on sanity. I was oppressed by my lonely
      responsibilities. I went into my cabin to seek relief in a few hours&rsquo; 
      sleep, but almost before I closed my eyes the man on deck came down
      reporting a light breeze. Enough to get under way with, he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      And it was no more than just enough. I ordered the windlass manned, the
      sails loosed, and the topsails set. But by the time I had cast the ship I
      could hardly feel any breath of wind. Nevertheless, I trimmed the yards
      and put everything on her. I was not going to give up the attempt.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      PART TWO
    </h2>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      IV
    </h2>
    <p>
      With her anchor at the bow and clothed in canvas to her very trucks, my
      command seemed to stand as motionless as a model ship set on the gleams
      and shadows of polished marble. It was impossible to distinguish land from
      water in the enigmatical tranquillity of the immense forces of the world.
      A sudden impatience possessed me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t she answer the helm at all?&rdquo; I said irritably to the man whose
      strong brown hands grasping the spokes of the wheel stood out lighted on
      the darkness; like a symbol of mankind&rsquo;s claim to the direction of its own
      fate.
    </p>
    <p>
      He answered me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir. She&rsquo;s coming-to slowly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let her head come up to south.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aye, aye, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I paced the poop. There was not a sound but that of my footsteps, till the
      man spoke again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She is at south now, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt a slight tightness of the chest before I gave out the first course
      of my first command to the silent night, heavy with dew and sparkling with
      stars. There was a finality in the act committing me to the endless
      vigilance of my lonely task.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Steady her head at that,&rdquo; I said at last. &ldquo;The course is south.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;South, sir,&rdquo; echoed the man.
    </p>
    <p>
      I sent below the second mate and his watch and remained in charge, walking
      the deck through the chill, somnolent hours that precede the dawn.
    </p>
    <p>
      Slight puffs came and went, and whenever they were strong enough to wake
      up the black water the murmur alongside ran through my very heart in a
      delicate crescendo of delight and died away swiftly. I was bitterly tired.
      The very stars seemed weary of waiting for daybreak. It came at last with
      a mother-of-pearl sheen at the zenith, such as I had never seen before in
      the tropics, unglowing, almost gray, with a strange reminder of high
      latitudes.
    </p>
    <p>
      The voice of the look-out man hailed from forward:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Land on the port bow, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Leaning on the rail I never even raised my eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      The motion of the ship was imperceptible. Presently Ransome brought me the
      cup of morning coffee. After I had drunk it I looked ahead, and in the
      still streak of very bright pale orange light I saw the land profiled
      flatly as if cut out of black paper and seeming to float on the water as
      light as cork. But the rising sun turned it into mere dark vapour, a
      doubtful, massive shadow trembling in the hot glare.
    </p>
    <p>
      The watch finished washing decks. I went below and stopped at Mr. Burns&rsquo; 
      door (he could not bear to have it shut), but hesitated to speak to him
      till he moved his eyes. I gave him the news.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sighted Cape Liant at daylight. About fifteen miles.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He moved his lips then, but I heard no sound till I put my ear down, and
      caught the peevish comment: &ldquo;This is crawling. . . . No luck.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Better luck than standing still, anyhow,&rdquo; I pointed out resignedly, and
      left him to whatever thoughts or fancies haunted his awful immobility.
    </p>
    <p>
      Later that morning, when relieved by my second officer, I threw myself on
      my couch and for some three hours or so I really found oblivion. It was so
      perfect that on waking up I wondered where I was. Then came the immense
      relief of the thought: on board my ship! At sea! At sea!
    </p>
    <p>
      Through the port-holes I beheld an unruffled, sun-smitten horizon. The
      horizon of a windless day. But its spaciousness alone was enough to give
      me a sense of a fortunate escape, a momentary exultation of freedom.
    </p>
    <p>
      I stepped out into the saloon with my heart lighter than it had been for
      days. Ransome was at the sideboard preparing to lay the table for the
      first sea dinner of the passage. He turned his head, and something in his
      eyes checked my modest elation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instinctively I asked: &ldquo;What is it now?&rdquo; not expecting in the least the
      answer I got. It was given with that sort of contained serenity which was
      characteristic of the man.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am afraid we haven&rsquo;t left all sickness behind us, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t! What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He told me then that two of our men had been taken bad with fever in the
      night. One of them was burning and the other was shivering, but he thought
      that it was pretty much the same thing. I thought so, too. I felt shocked
      by the news. &ldquo;One burning, the other shivering, you say? No. We haven&rsquo;t
      left the sickness behind. Do they look very ill?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Middling bad, sir.&rdquo; Ransome&rsquo;s eyes gazed steadily into mine. We exchanged
      smiles. Ransome&rsquo;s a little wistful, as usual, mine no doubt grim enough,
      to correspond with my secret exasperation.
    </p>
    <p>
      I asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Was there any wind at all this morning?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Can hardly say that, sir. We&rsquo;ve moved all the time though. The land ahead
      seems a little nearer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That was it. A little nearer. Whereas if we had only had a little more
      wind, only a very little more, we might, we should, have been abreast of
      Liant by this time and increasing our distance from that contaminated
      shore. And it was not only the distance. It seemed to me that a stronger
      breeze would have blown away the contamination which clung to the ship. It
      obviously did cling to the ship. Two men. One burning, one shivering. I
      felt a distinct reluctance to go and look at them. What was the good?
      Poison is poison. Tropical fever is tropical fever. But that it should
      have stretched its claw after us over the sea seemed to me an
      extraordinary and unfair license. I could hardly believe that it could be
      anything worse than the last desperate pluck of the evil from which we
      were escaping into the clean breath of the sea. If only that breath had
      been a little stronger. However, there was the quinine against the fever.
      I went into the spare cabin where the medicine chest was kept to prepare
      two doses. I opened it full of faith as a man opens a miraculous shrine.
      The upper part was inhabited by a collection of bottles, all
      square-shouldered and as like each other as peas. Under that orderly array
      there were two drawers, stuffed as full of things as one could imagine&mdash;paper
      packages, bandages, cardboard boxes officially labelled. The lower of the
      two, in one of its compartments, contained our provision of quinine.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were five bottles, all round and all of a size. One was about a
      third full. The other four remained still wrapped up in paper and sealed.
      But I did not expect to see an envelope lying on top of them. A square
      envelope, belonging, in fact, to the ship&rsquo;s stationery.
    </p>
    <p>
      It lay so that I could see it was not closed down, and on picking it up
      and turning it over I perceived that it was addressed to myself. It
      contained a half-sheet of notepaper, which I unfolded with a queer sense
      of dealing with the uncanny, but without any excitement as people meet and
      do extraordinary things in a dream.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My dear Captain,&rdquo; it began, but I ran to the signature. The writer was
      the doctor. The date was that of the day on which, returning from my visit
      to Mr. Burns in the hospital, I had found the excellent doctor waiting for
      me in the cabin; and when he told me that he had been putting in time
      inspecting the medicine chest for me. How bizarre! While expecting me to
      come in at any moment he had been amusing himself by writing me a letter,
      and then as I came in had hastened to stuff it into the medicine-chest
      drawer. A rather incredible proceeding. I turned to the text in wonder.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a large, hurried, but legible hand the good, sympathetic man for some
      reason, either of kindness or more likely impelled by the irresistible
      desire to express his opinion, with which he didn&rsquo;t want to damp my hopes
      before, was warning me not to put my trust in the beneficial effects of a
      change from land to sea. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to add to your worries by
      discouraging your hopes,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;I am afraid that, medically speaking,
      the end of your troubles is not yet.&rdquo; In short, he expected me to have to
      fight a probable return of tropical illness. Fortunately I had a good
      provision of quinine. I should put my trust in that, and administer it
      steadily, when the ship&rsquo;s health would certainly improve.
    </p>
    <p>
      I crumpled up the letter and rammed it into my pocket. Ransome carried off
      two big doses to the men forward. As to myself, I did not go on deck as
      yet. I went instead to the door of Mr. Burns&rsquo; room, and gave him that
      news, too.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was impossible to say the effect it had on him. At first I thought that
      he was speechless. His head lay sunk in the pillow. He moved his lips
      enough, however, to assure me that he was getting much stronger; a
      statement shockingly untrue on the face of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      That afternoon I took my watch as a matter of course. A great over-heated
      stillness enveloped the ship and seemed to hold her motionless in a
      flaming ambience composed in two shades of blue. Faint, hot puffs eddied
      nervelessly from her sails. And yet she moved. She must have. For, as the
      sun was setting, we had drawn abreast of Cape Liant and dropped it behind
      us: an ominous retreating shadow in the last gleams of twilight.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the evening, under the crude glare of his lamp, Mr. Burns seemed to
      have come more to the surface of his bedding. It was as if a depressing
      hand had been lifted off him. He answered my few words by a comparatively
      long, connected speech. He asserted himself strongly. If he escaped being
      smothered by this stagnant heat, he said, he was confident that in a very
      few days he would be able to come up on deck and help me.
    </p>
    <p>
      While he was speaking I trembled lest this effort of energy should leave
      him lifeless before my eyes. But I cannot deny that there was something
      comforting in his willingness. I made a suitable reply, but pointed out to
      him that the only thing that could really help us was wind&mdash;a fair
      wind.
    </p>
    <p>
      He rolled his head impatiently on the pillow. And it was not comforting in
      the least to hear him begin to mutter crazily about the late captain, that
      old man buried in latitude 8 d 20&rsquo;, right in our way&mdash;ambushed at the
      entrance of the Gulf.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Are you still thinking of your late captain, Mr. Burns?&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I
      imagine the dead feel no animosity against the living. They care nothing
      for them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know that one,&rdquo; he breathed out feebly.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. I didn&rsquo;t know him, and he didn&rsquo;t know me. And so he can&rsquo;t have any
      grievance against me, anyway.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. But there&rsquo;s all the rest of us on board,&rdquo; he insisted.
    </p>
    <p>
      I felt the inexpugnable strength of common sense being insidiously menaced
      by this gruesome, by this insane, delusion. And I said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t talk so much. You will tire yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And there is the ship herself,&rdquo; he persisted in a whisper.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, not a word more,&rdquo; I said, stepping in and laying my hand on his cool
      forehead. It proved to me that this atrocious absurdity was rooted in the
      man himself and not in the disease, which, apparently, had emptied him of
      every power, mental and physical, except that one fixed idea.
    </p>
    <p>
      I avoided giving Mr. Burns any opening for conversation for the next few
      days. I merely used to throw him a hasty, cheery word when passing his
      door. I believe that if he had had the strength he would have called out
      after me more than once. But he hadn&rsquo;t the strength. Ransome, however,
      observed to me one afternoon that the mate &ldquo;seemed to be picking up
      wonderfully.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did he talk any nonsense to you of late?&rdquo; I asked casually.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo; Ransome was startled by the direct question; but, after a
      pause, he added equably: &ldquo;He told me this morning, sir, that he was sorry
      he had to bury our late captain right in the ship&rsquo;s way, as one may say,
      out of the Gulf.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t this nonsense enough for you?&rdquo; I asked, looking confidently at the
      intelligent, quiet face on which the secret uneasiness in the man&rsquo;s breast
      had thrown a transparent veil of care.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ransome didn&rsquo;t know. He had not given a thought to the matter. And with a
      faint smile he flitted away from me on his never-ending duties, with his
      usual guarded activity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two more days passed. We had advanced a little way&mdash;a very little way&mdash;into
      the larger space of the Gulf of Siam. Seizing eagerly upon the elation of
      the first command thrown into my lap, by the agency of Captain Giles, I
      had yet an uneasy feeling that such luck as this has got perhaps to be
      paid for in some way. I had held, professionally, a review of my chances.
      I was competent enough for that. At least, I thought so. I had a general
      sense of my preparedness which only a man pursuing a calling he loves can
      know. That feeling seemed to me the most natural thing in the world. As
      natural as breathing. I imagined I could not have lived without it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I don&rsquo;t know what I expected. Perhaps nothing else than that special
      intensity of existence which is the quintessence of youthful aspirations.
      Whatever I expected I did not expect to be beset by hurricanes. I knew
      better than that. In the Gulf of Siam there are no hurricanes. But neither
      did I expect to find myself bound hand and foot to the hopeless extent
      which was revealed to me as the days went on.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not that the evil spell held us always motionless. Mysterious currents
      drifted us here and there, with a stealthy power made manifest only by the
      changing vistas of the islands fringing the east shore of the Gulf. And
      there were winds, too, fitful and deceitful. They raised hopes only to
      dash them into the bitterest disappointment, promises of advance ending in
      lost ground, expiring in sighs, dying into dumb stillness in which the
      currents had it all their own way&mdash;their own inimical way.
    </p>
    <p>
      The island of Koh-ring, a great, black, upheaved ridge amongst a lot of
      tiny islets, lying upon the glassy water like a triton amongst minnows,
      seemed to be the centre of the fatal circle. It seemed impossible to get
      away from it. Day after day it remained in sight. More than once, in a
      favourable breeze, I would take its bearings in the fast-ebbing twilight,
      thinking that it was for the last time. Vain hope. A night of fitful airs
      would undo the gains of temporary favour, and the rising sun would throw
      out the black relief of Koh-ring looking more barren, inhospitable, and
      grim than ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like being bewitched, upon my word,&rdquo; I said once to Mr. Burns, from
      my usual position in the doorway.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was sitting up in his bed-place. He was progressing toward the world of
      living men; if he could hardly have been said to have rejoined it yet. He
      nodded to me his frail and bony head in a wisely mysterious assent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I know what you mean,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But you cannot expect me to
      believe that a dead man has the power to put out of joint the meteorology
      of this part of the world. Though indeed it seems to have gone utterly
      wrong. The land and sea breezes have got broken up into small pieces. We
      cannot depend upon them for five minutes together.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t be very long now before I can come up on deck,&rdquo; muttered Mr.
      Burns, &ldquo;and then we shall see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Whether he meant this for a promise to grapple with supernatural evil I
      couldn&rsquo;t tell. At any rate, it wasn&rsquo;t the kind of assistance I needed. On
      the other hand, I had been living on deck practically night and day so as
      to take advantage of every chance to get my ship a little more to the
      southward. The mate, I could see, was extremely weak yet, and not quite
      rid of his delusion, which to me appeared but a symptom of his disease. At
      all events, the hopefulness of an invalid was not to be discouraged. I
      said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will be most welcome there, I am sure, Mr. Burns. If you go on
      improving at this rate you&rsquo;ll be presently one of the healthiest men in
      the ship.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This pleased him, but his extreme emaciation converted his self-satisfied
      smile into a ghastly exhibition of long teeth under the red moustache.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t the fellows improving, sir?&rdquo; he asked soberly, with an extremely
      sensible expression of anxiety on his face.
    </p>
    <p>
      I answered him only with a vague gesture and went away from the door. The
      fact was that disease played with us capriciously very much as the winds
      did. It would go from one man to another with a lighter or heavier touch,
      which always left its mark behind, staggering some, knocking others over
      for a time, leaving this one, returning to another, so that all of them
      had now an invalidish aspect and a hunted, apprehensive look in their
      eyes; while Ransome and I, the only two completely untouched, went amongst
      them assiduously distributing quinine. It was a double fight. The adverse
      weather held us in front and the disease pressed on our rear. I must say
      that the men were very good. The constant toil of trimming yards they
      faced willingly. But all spring was out of their limbs, and as I looked at
      them from the poop I could not keep from my mind the dreadful impression
      that they were moving in poisoned air.
    </p>
    <p>
      Down below, in his cabin, Mr. Burns had advanced so far as not only to be
      able to sit up, but even to draw up his legs. Clasping them with bony
      arms, like an animated skeleton, he emitted deep, impatient sighs.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The great thing to do, sir,&rdquo; he would tell me on every occasion, when I
      gave him the chance, &ldquo;the great thing is to get the ship past 8 d 20&rsquo; of
      latitude. Once she&rsquo;s past that we&rsquo;re all right.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      At first I used only to smile at him, though, God knows, I had not much
      heart left for smiles. But at last I lost my patience.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes. The latitude 8 d 20&rsquo;. That&rsquo;s where you buried your late captain,
      isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Then with severity: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think, Mr. Burns, it&rsquo;s about
      time you dropped all that nonsense?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He rolled at me his deep-sunken eyes in a glance of invincible obstinacy.
      But for the rest he only muttered, just loud enough for me to hear,
      something about &ldquo;Not surprised . . . find . . . play us some beastly trick
      yet. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Such passages as this were not exactly wholesome for my resolution. The
      stress of adversity was beginning to tell on me. At the same time, I felt
      a contempt for that obscure weakness of my soul. I said to myself
      disdainfully that it should take much more than that to affect in the
      smallest degree my fortitude.
    </p>
    <p>
      I didn&rsquo;t know then how soon and from what unexpected direction it would be
      attacked.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the very next day. The sun had risen clear of the southern shoulder
      of Koh-ring, which still hung, like an evil attendant, on our port
      quarter. It was intensely hateful to my sight. During the night we had
      been heading all round the compass, trimming the yards again and again, to
      what I fear must have been for the most part imaginary puffs of air. Then
      just about sunrise we got for an hour an inexplicable, steady breeze,
      right in our teeth. There was no sense in it. It fitted neither with the
      season of the year nor with the secular experience of seamen as recorded
      in books, nor with the aspect of the sky. Only purposeful malevolence
      could account for it. It sent us travelling at a great pace away from our
      proper course; and if we had been out on pleasure sailing bent it would
      have been a delightful breeze, with the awakened sparkle of the sea, with
      the sense of motion and a feeling of unwonted freshness. Then, all at
      once, as if disdaining to carry farther the sorry jest, it dropped and
      died out completely in less than five minutes. The ship&rsquo;s head swung where
      it listed; the stilled sea took on the polish of a steel plate in the
      calm.
    </p>
    <p>
      I went below, not because I meant to take some rest, but simply because I
      couldn&rsquo;t bear to look at it just then. The indefatigable Ransome was busy
      in the saloon. It had become a regular practice with him to give me an
      informal health report in the morning. He turned away from the sideboard
      with his usual pleasant, quiet gaze. No shadow rested on his intelligent
      forehead.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There are a good many of them middling bad this morning, sir,&rdquo; he said in
      a calm tone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What? All knocked out?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Only two actually in their bunks, sir, but&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the last night that has done for them. We have had to pull and haul
      all the blessed time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I heard, sir. I had a mind to come out and help only, you know. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Certainly not. You mustn&rsquo;t. . . . The fellows lie at night about the
      decks, too. It isn&rsquo;t good for them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ransome assented. But men couldn&rsquo;t be looked after like children.
      Moreover, one could hardly blame them for trying for such coolness and
      such air as there was to be found on deck. He himself, of course, knew
      better.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was, indeed, a reasonable man. Yet it would have been hard to say that
      the others were not. The last few days had been for us like the ordeal of
      the fiery furnace. One really couldn&rsquo;t quarrel with their common,
      imprudent humanity making the best of the moments of relief, when the
      night brought in the illusion of coolness and the starlight twinkled
      through the heavy, dew-laden air. Moreover, most of them were so weakened
      that hardly anything could be done without everybody that could totter
      mustering on the braces. No, it was no use remonstrating with them. But I
      fully believed that quinine was of very great use indeed.
    </p>
    <p>
      I believed in it. I pinned my faith to it. It would save the men, the
      ship, break the spell by its medicinal virtue, make time of no account,
      the weather but a passing worry and, like a magic powder working against
      mysterious malefices, secure the first passage of my first command against
      the evil powers of calms and pestilence. I looked upon it as more precious
      than gold, and unlike gold, of which there ever hardly seems to be enough
      anywhere, the ship had a sufficient store of it. I went in to get it with
      the purpose of weighing out doses. I stretched my hand with the feeling of
      a man reaching for an unfailing panacea, took up a fresh bottle and
      unrolled the wrapper, noticing as I did so that the ends, both top and
      bottom, had come unsealed. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      But why record all the swift steps of the appalling discovery? You have
      guessed the truth already. There was the wrapper, the bottle, and the
      white powder inside, some sort of powder! But it wasn&rsquo;t quinine. One look
      at it was quite enough. I remember that at the very moment of picking up
      the bottle, before I even dealt with the wrapper, the weight of the object
      I had in my hand gave me an instant premonition. Quinine is as light as
      feathers; and my nerves must have been exasperated into an extraordinary
      sensibility. I let the bottle smash itself on the floor. The stuff,
      whatever it was, felt gritty under the sole of my shoe. I snatched up the
      next bottle and then the next. The weight alone told the tale. One after
      another they fell, breaking at my feet, not because I threw them down in
      my dismay, but slipping through my fingers as if this disclosure were too
      much for my strength.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a fact that the very greatness of a mental shock helps one to bear
      up against it by producing a sort of temporary insensibility. I came out
      of the state-room stunned, as if something heavy had dropped on my head.
      From the other side of the saloon, across the table, Ransome, with a
      duster in his hand, stared open-mouthed. I don&rsquo;t think that I looked wild.
      It is quite possible that I appeared to be in a hurry because I was
      instinctively hastening up on deck. An example this of training become
      instinct. The difficulties, the dangers, the problems of a ship at sea
      must be met on deck.
    </p>
    <p>
      To this fact, as it were of nature, I responded instinctively; which may
      be taken as a proof that for a moment I must have been robbed of my
      reason.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was certainly off my balance, a prey to impulse, for at the bottom of
      the stairs I turned and flung myself at the doorway of Mr. Burns&rsquo; cabin.
      The wildness of his aspect checked my mental disorder. He was sitting up
      in his bunk, his body looking immensely long, his head drooping a little
      sideways, with affected complacency. He flourished, in his trembling hand,
      on the end of a forearm no thicker than a walking-stick, a shining pair of
      scissors which he tried before my very eyes to jab at his throat.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was to a certain extent horrified; but it was rather a secondary sort of
      effect, not really strong enough to make me yell at him in some such
      manner as: &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; . . . &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; . . . &ldquo;What are you doing?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In reality he was simply overtaxing his returning strength in a shaky
      attempt to clip off the thick growth of his red beard. A large towel was
      spread over his lap, and a shower of stiff hairs, like bits of copper
      wire, was descending on it at every snip of the scissors.
    </p>
    <p>
      He turned to me his face grotesque beyond the fantasies of mad dreams, one
      cheek all bushy as if with a swollen flame, the other denuded and sunken,
      with the untouched long moustache on that side asserting itself, lonely
      and fierce. And while he stared thunderstruck, with the gaping scissors on
      his fingers, I shouted my discovery at him fiendishly, in six words,
      without comment.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      V
    </h2>
    <p>
      I heard the clatter of the scissors escaping from his hand, noted the
      perilous heave of his whole person over the edge of the bunk after them,
      and then, returning to my first purpose, pursued my course on the deck.
      The sparkle of the sea filled my eyes. It was gorgeous and barren,
      monotonous and without hope under the empty curve of the sky. The sails
      hung motionless and slack, the very folds of their sagging surfaces moved
      no more than carved granite. The impetuosity of my advent made the man at
      the helm start slightly. A block aloft squeaked incomprehensibly, for what
      on earth could have made it do so? It was a whistling note like a bird&rsquo;s.
      For a long, long time I faced an empty world, steeped in an infinity of
      silence, through which the sunshine poured and flowed for some mysterious
      purpose. Then I heard Ransome&rsquo;s voice at my elbow.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I have put Mr. Burns back to bed, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, sir, he got out, all of a sudden, but when he let go the edge of
      his bunk he fell down. He isn&rsquo;t light-headed, though, it seems to me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said dully, without looking at Ransome. He waited for a moment,
      then cautiously, as if not to give offence: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we need lose
      much of that stuff, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can sweep it up, every bit of it
      almost, and then we could sift the glass out. I will go about it at once.
      It will not make the breakfast late, not ten minutes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; I said bitterly. &ldquo;Let the breakfast wait, sweep up every bit of
      it, and then throw the damned lot overboard!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The profound silence returned, and when I looked over my shoulder, Ransome&mdash;the
      intelligent, serene Ransome&mdash;had vanished from my side. The intense
      loneliness of the sea acted like poison on my brain. When I turned my eyes
      to the ship, I had a morbid vision of her as a floating grave. Who hasn&rsquo;t
      heard of ships found floating, haphazard, with their crews all dead? I
      looked at the seaman at the helm, I had an impulse to speak to him, and,
      indeed, his face took on an expectant cast as if he had guessed my
      intention. But in the end I went below, thinking I would be alone with the
      greatness of my trouble for a little while. But through his open door Mr.
      Burns saw me come down, and addressed me grumpily: &ldquo;Well, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I went in. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t well at all,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns, reestablished in his bed-place, was concealing his hirsute
      cheek in the palm of his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That confounded fellow has taken away the scissors from me,&rdquo; were the
      next words he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      The tension I was suffering from was so great that it was perhaps just as
      well that Mr. Burns had started on his grievance. He seemed very sore
      about it and grumbled, &ldquo;Does he think I am mad, or what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so, Mr. Burns,&rdquo; I said. I looked upon him at that moment as
      a model of self-possession. I even conceived on that account a sort of
      admiration for that man, who had (apart from the intense materiality of
      what was left of his beard) come as near to being a disembodied spirit as
      any man can do and live. I noticed the preternatural sharpness of the
      ridge of his nose, the deep cavities of his temples, and I envied him. He
      was so reduced that he would probably die very soon. Enviable man! So near
      extinction&mdash;while I had to bear within me a tumult of suffering
      vitality, doubt, confusion, self-reproach, and an indefinite reluctance to
      meet the horrid logic of the situation. I could not help muttering: &ldquo;I
      feel as if I were going mad myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns glared spectrally, but otherwise was wonderfully composed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I always thought he would play us some deadly trick,&rdquo; he said, with a
      peculiar emphasis on the <i>he</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      It gave me a mental shock, but I had neither the mind, nor the heart, nor
      the spirit to argue with him. My form of sickness was indifference. The
      creeping paralysis of a hopeless outlook. So I only gazed at him. Mr.
      Burns broke into further speech.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Eh! What! No! You won&rsquo;t believe it? Well, how do you account for this?
      How do you think it could have happened?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Happened?&rdquo; I repeated dully. &ldquo;Why, yes, how in the name of the infernal
      powers did this thing happen?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Indeed, on thinking it out, it seemed incomprehensible that it should just
      be like this: the bottles emptied, refilled, rewrapped, and replaced. A
      sort of plot, a sinister attempt to deceive, a thing resembling sly
      vengeance, but for what? Or else a fiendish joke. But Mr. Burns was in
      possession of a theory. It was simple, and he uttered it solemnly in a
      hollow voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose they have given him about fifteen pounds in Haiphong for that
      little lot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Burns!&rdquo; I cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      He nodded grotesquely over his raised legs, like two broomsticks in the
      pyjamas, with enormous bare feet at the end.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why not? The stuff is pretty expensive in this part of the world, and
      they were very short of it in Tonkin. And what did he care? You have not
      known him. I have, and I have defied him. He feared neither God, nor
      devil, nor man, nor wind, nor sea, nor his own conscience. And I believe
      he hated everybody and everything. But I think he was afraid to die. I
      believe I am the only man who ever stood up to him. I faced him in that
      cabin where you live now, when he was sick, and I cowed him then. He
      thought I was going to twist his neck for him. If he had had his way we
      would have been beating up against the Nord-East monsoon, as long as he
      lived and afterward, too, for ages and ages. Acting the Flying Dutchman in
      the China Sea! Ha! Ha!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But why should he replace the bottles like this?&rdquo; . . . I began.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t he? Why should he want to throw the bottles away? They fit
      the drawer. They belong to the medicine chest.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And they were wrapped up,&rdquo; I cried.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, the wrappers were there. Did it from habit, I suppose, and as to
      refilling, there is always a lot of stuff they send in paper parcels that
      burst after a time. And then, who can tell? I suppose you didn&rsquo;t taste it,
      sir? But, of course, you are sure. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t taste it. It is all overboard now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Behind me, a soft, cultivated voice said: &ldquo;I have tasted it. It seemed a
      mixture of all sorts, sweetish, saltish, very horrible.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Ransome, stepping out of the pantry, had been listening for some time, as
      it was very excusable in him to do.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;A dirty trick,&rdquo; said Mr. Burns. &ldquo;I always said he would.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The magnitude of my indignation was unbounded. And the kind, sympathetic
      doctor, too. The only sympathetic man I ever knew . . . instead of writing
      that warning letter, the very refinement of sympathy, why didn&rsquo;t the man
      make a proper inspection? But, as a matter of fact, it was hardly fair to
      blame the doctor. The fittings were in order and the medicine chest is an
      officially arranged affair. There was nothing really to arouse the
      slightest suspicion. The person I could never forgive was myself. Nothing
      should ever be taken for granted. The seed of everlasting remorse was sown
      in my breast.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I feel it&rsquo;s all my fault,&rdquo; I exclaimed, &ldquo;mine and nobody else&rsquo;s. That&rsquo;s
      how I feel. I shall never forgive myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very foolish, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Burns fiercely.
    </p>
    <p>
      And after this effort he fell back exhausted on his bed. He closed his
      eyes, he panted; this affair, this abominable surprise had shaken him up,
      too. As I turned away I perceived Ransome looking at me blankly. He
      appreciated what it meant, but managed to produce his pleasant, wistful
      smile. Then he stepped back into his pantry, and I rushed up on deck again
      to see whether there was any wind, any breath under the sky, any stir of
      the air, any sign of hope. The deadly stillness met me again. Nothing was
      changed except that there was a different man at the wheel. He looked ill.
      His whole figure drooped, and he seemed rather to cling to the spokes than
      hold them with a controlling grip. I said to him:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are not fit to be here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can manage, sir,&rdquo; he said feebly.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a matter of fact, there was nothing for him to do. The ship had no
      steerage way. She lay with her head to the westward, the everlasting
      Koh-ring visible over the stern, with a few small islets, black spots in
      the great blaze, swimming before my troubled eyes. And but for those bits
      of land there was no speck on the sky, no speck on the water, no shape of
      vapour, no wisp of smoke, no sail, no boat, no stir of humanity, no sign
      of life, nothing!
    </p>
    <p>
      The first question was, what to do? What could one do? The first thing to
      do obviously was to tell the men. I did it that very day. I wasn&rsquo;t going
      to let the knowledge simply get about. I would face them. They were
      assembled on the quarterdeck for the purpose. Just before I stepped out to
      speak to them I discovered that life could hold terrible moments. No
      confessed criminal had ever been so oppressed by his sense of guilt. This
      is why, perhaps, my face was set hard and my voice curt and unemotional
      while I made my declaration that I could do nothing more for the sick in
      the way of drugs. As to such care as could be given them they knew they
      had had it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I would have held them justified in tearing me limb from limb. The silence
      which followed upon my words was almost harder to bear than the angriest
      uproar. I was crushed by the infinite depth of its reproach. But, as a
      matter of fact, I was mistaken. In a voice which I had great difficulty in
      keeping firm, I went on: &ldquo;I suppose, men, you have understood what I said,
      and you know what it means.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A voice or two were heard: &ldquo;Yes, sir. . . . We understand.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They had kept silent simply because they thought that they were not called
      to say anything; and when I told them that I intended to run into
      Singapore and that the best chance for the ship and the men was in the
      efforts all of us, sick and well, must make to get her along out of this,
      I received the encouragement of a low assenting murmur and of a louder
      voice exclaiming: &ldquo;Surely there is a way out of this blamed hole.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      Here is an extract from the notes I wrote at the time.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have lost Koh-ring at last. For many days now I don&rsquo;t think I have
      been two hours below altogether. I remain on deck, of course, night and
      day, and the nights and the days wheel over us in succession, whether long
      or short, who can say? All sense of time is lost in the monotony of
      expectation, of hope, and of desire&mdash;which is only one: Get the ship
      to the southward! Get the ship to the southward! The effect is curiously
      mechanical; the sun climbs and descends, the night swings over our heads
      as if somebody below the horizon were turning a crank. It is the
      prettiest, the most aimless! . . . and all through that miserable
      performance I go on, tramping, tramping the deck. How many miles have I
      walked on the poop of that ship! A stubborn pilgrimage of sheer
      restlessness, diversified by short excursions below to look upon Mr.
      Burns. I don&rsquo;t know whether it is an illusion, but he seems to become more
      substantial from day to day. He doesn&rsquo;t say much, for, indeed, the
      situation doesn&rsquo;t lend itself to idle remarks. I notice this even with the
      men as I watch them moving or sitting about the decks. They don&rsquo;t talk to
      each other. It strikes me that if there exists an invisible ear catching
      the whispers of the earth, it will find this ship the most silent spot on
      it. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, Mr. Burns has not much to say to me. He sits in his bunk with his
      beard gone, his moustaches flaming, and with an air of silent
      determination on his chalky physiognomy. Ransome tells me he devours all
      the food that is given him to the last scrap, but that, apparently, he
      sleeps very little. Even at night, when I go below to fill my pipe, I
      notice that, though dozing flat on his back, he still looks very
      determined. From the side glance he gives me when awake it seems as though
      he were annoyed at being interrupted in some arduous mental operation; and
      as I emerge on deck the ordered arrangement of the stars meets my eye,
      unclouded, infinitely wearisome. There they are: stars, sun, sea, light,
      darkness, space, great waters; the formidable Work of the Seven Days, into
      which mankind seems to have blundered unbidden. Or else decoyed. Even as I
      have been decoyed into this awful, this death-haunted command. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      The only spot of light in the ship at night was that of the compass-lamps,
      lighting up the faces of the succeeding helmsmen; for the rest we were
      lost in the darkness, I walking the poop and the men lying about the
      decks. They were all so reduced by sickness that no watches could be kept.
      Those who were able to walk remained all the time on duty, lying about in
      the shadows of the main deck, till my voice raised for an order would
      bring them to their enfeebled feet, a tottering little group, moving
      patiently about the ship, with hardly a murmur, a whisper amongst them
      all. And every time I had to raise my voice it was with a pang of remorse
      and pity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then about four o&rsquo;clock in the morning a light would gleam forward in the
      galley. The unfailing Ransome with the uneasy heart, immune, serene, and
      active, was getting ready for the early coffee for the men. Presently he
      would bring me a cup up on the poop, and it was then that I allowed myself
      to drop into my deck chair for a couple of hours of real sleep. No doubt I
      must have been snatching short dozes when leaning against the rail for a
      moment in sheer exhaustion; but, honestly, I was not aware of them, except
      in the painful form of convulsive starts that seemed to come on me even
      while I walked. From about five, however, until after seven I would sleep
      openly under the fading stars.
    </p>
    <p>
      I would say to the helmsman: &ldquo;Call me at need,&rdquo; and drop into that chair
      and close my eyes, feeling that there was no more sleep for me on earth.
      And then I would know nothing till, some time between seven and eight, I
      would feel a touch on my shoulder and look up at Ransome&rsquo;s face, with its
      faint, wistful smile and friendly, gray eyes, as though he were tenderly
      amused at my slumbers. Occasionally the second mate would come up and
      relieve me at early coffee time. But it didn&rsquo;t really matter. Generally it
      was a dead calm, or else faint airs so changing and fugitive that it
      really wasn&rsquo;t worth while to touch a brace for them. If the air steadied
      at all the seaman at the helm could be trusted for a warning shout:
      &ldquo;Ship&rsquo;s all aback, sir!&rdquo; which like a trumpet-call would make me spring a
      foot above the deck. Those were the words which it seemed to me would have
      made me spring up from eternal sleep. But this was not often. I have never
      met since such breathless sunrises. And if the second mate happened to be
      there (he had generally one day in three free of fever) I would find him
      sitting on the skylight half senseless, as it were, and with an idiotic
      gaze fastened on some object near by&mdash;a rope, a cleat, a belaying
      pin, a ringbolt.
    </p>
    <p>
      That young man was rather troublesome. He remained cubbish in his
      sufferings. He seemed to have become completely imbecile; and when the
      return of fever drove him to his cabin below, the next thing would be that
      we would miss him from there. The first time it happened Ransome and I
      were very much alarmed. We started a quiet search and ultimately Ransome
      discovered him curled up in the sail-locker, which opened into the lobby
      by a sliding door. When remonstrated with, he muttered sulkily, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s cool
      in there.&rdquo; That wasn&rsquo;t true. It was only dark there.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fundamental defects of his face were not improved by its uniform livid
      hue. The disease disclosed its low type in a startling way. It was not so
      with many of the men. The wastage of ill-health seemed to idealise the
      general character of the features, bringing out the unsuspected nobility
      of some, the strength of others, and in one case revealing an essentially
      comic aspect. He was a short, gingery, active man with a nose and chin of
      the Punch type, and whom his shipmates called &ldquo;Frenchy.&rdquo; I don&rsquo;t know why.
      He may have been a Frenchman, but I have never heard him utter a single
      word in French.
    </p>
    <p>
      To see him coming aft to the wheel comforted one. The blue dungaree
      trousers turned up the calf, one leg a little higher than the other, the
      clean check shirt, the white canvas cap, evidently made by himself, made
      up a whole of peculiar smartness, and the persistent jauntiness of his
      gait, even, poor fellow, when he couldn&rsquo;t help tottering, told of his
      invincible spirit. There was also a man called Gambril. He was the only
      grizzled person in the ship. His face was of an austere type. But if I
      remember all their faces, wasting tragically before my eyes, most of their
      names have vanished from my memory.
    </p>
    <p>
      The words that passed between us were few and puerile in regard of the
      situation. I had to force myself to look them in the face. I expected to
      meet reproachful glances. There were none. The expression of suffering in
      their eyes was indeed hard enough to bear. But that they couldn&rsquo;t help.
      For the rest, I ask myself whether it was the temper of their souls or the
      sympathy of their imagination that made them so wonderful, so worthy of my
      undying regard.
    </p>
    <p>
      For myself, neither my soul was highly tempered, nor my imagination
      properly under control. There were moments when I felt, not only that I
      would go mad, but that I had gone mad already; so that I dared not open my
      lips for fear of betraying myself by some insane shriek. Luckily I had
      only orders to give, and an order has a steadying influence upon him who
      has to give it. Moreover, the seaman, the officer of the watch, in me was
      sufficiently sane. I was like a mad carpenter making a box. Were he ever
      so convinced that he was King of Jerusalem, the box he would make would be
      a sane box. What I feared was a shrill note escaping me involuntarily and
      upsetting my balance. Luckily, again, there was no necessity to raise
      one&rsquo;s voice. The brooding stillness of the world seemed sensitive to the
      slightest sound, like a whispering gallery. The conversational tone would
      almost carry a word from one end of the ship to the other. The terrible
      thing was that the only voice that I ever heard was my own. At night
      especially it reverberated very lonely amongst the planes of the
      unstirring sails.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns, still keeping to his bed with that air of secret determination,
      was moved to grumble at many things. Our interviews were short five-minute
      affairs, but fairly frequent. I was everlastingly diving down below to get
      a light, though I did not consume much tobacco at that time. The pipe was
      always going out; for in truth my mind was not composed enough to enable
      me to get a decent smoke. Likewise, for most of the time during the
      twenty-four hours I could have struck matches on deck and held them aloft
      till the flame burnt my fingers. But I always used to run below. It was a
      change. It was the only break in the incessant strain; and, of course, Mr.
      Burns through the open door could see me come in and go out every time.
    </p>
    <p>
      With his knees gathered up under his chin and staring with his greenish
      eyes over them, he was a weird figure, and with my knowledge of the crazy
      notion in his head, not a very attractive one for me. Still, I had to
      speak to him now and then, and one day he complained that the ship was
      very silent. For hours and hours, he said, he was lying there, not hearing
      a sound, till he did not know what to do with himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When Ransome happens to be forward in his galley everything&rsquo;s so still
      that one might think everybody in the ship was dead,&rdquo; he grumbled. &ldquo;The
      only voice I do hear sometimes is yours, sir, and that isn&rsquo;t enough to
      cheer me up. What&rsquo;s the matter with the men? Isn&rsquo;t there one left that can
      sing out at the ropes?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not one, Mr. Burns,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;There is no breath to spare on board this
      ship for that. Are you aware that there are times when I can&rsquo;t muster more
      than three hands to do anything?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He asked swiftly but fearfully:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nobody dead yet, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It wouldn&rsquo;t do,&rdquo; Mr. Burns declared forcibly. &ldquo;Mustn&rsquo;t let him. If he
      gets hold of one he will get them all.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I cried out angrily at this. I believe I even swore at the disturbing
      effect of these words. They attacked all the self-possession that was left
      to me. In my endless vigil in the face of the enemy I had been haunted by
      gruesome images enough. I had had visions of a ship drifting in calms and
      swinging in light airs, with all her crew dying slowly about her decks.
      Such things had been known to happen.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns met my outburst by a mysterious silence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t believe yourself what you say. You can&rsquo;t.
      It&rsquo;s impossible. It isn&rsquo;t the sort of thing I have a right to expect from
      you. My position&rsquo;s bad enough without being worried with your silly
      fancies.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He remained unmoved. On account of the way in which the light fell on his
      head I could not be sure whether he had smiled faintly or not. I changed
      my tone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s getting so desperate that I had thought for a
      moment, since we can&rsquo;t make our way south, whether I wouldn&rsquo;t try to steer
      west and make an attempt to reach the mailboat track. We could always get
      some quinine from her, at least. What do you think?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He cried out: &ldquo;No, no, no. Don&rsquo;t do that, sir. You mustn&rsquo;t for a moment
      give up facing that old ruffian. If you do he will get the upper hand of
      us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I left him. He was impossible. It was like a case of possession. His
      protest, however, was essentially quite sound. As a matter of fact, my
      notion of heading out west on the chance of sighting a problematical
      steamer could not bear calm examination. On the side where we were we had
      enough wind, at least from time to time, to struggle on toward the south.
      Enough, at least, to keep hope alive. But suppose that I had used those
      capricious gusts of wind to sail away to the westward, into some region
      where there was not a breath of air for days on end, what then? Perhaps my
      appalling vision of a ship floating with a dead crew would become a
      reality for the discovery weeks afterward by some horror-stricken
      mariners.
    </p>
    <p>
      That afternoon Ransome brought me up a cup of tea, and while waiting
      there, tray in hand, he remarked in the exactly right tone of sympathy:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are holding out well, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You and I seem to have been forgotten.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Forgotten, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, by the fever-devil who has got on board this ship,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ransome gave me one of his attractive, intelligent, quick glances and went
      away with the tray. It occurred to me that I had been talking somewhat in
      Mr. Burns&rsquo; manner. It annoyed me. Yet often in darker moments I forgot
      myself into an attitude toward our troubles more fit for a contest against
      a living enemy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes. The fever-devil had not laid his hand yet either on Ransome or on me.
      But he might at any time. It was one of those thoughts one had to fight
      down, keep at arm&rsquo;s length at any cost. It was unbearable to contemplate
      the possibility of Ransome, the housekeeper of the ship, being laid low.
      And what would happen to my command if I got knocked over, with Mr. Burns
      too weak to stand without holding on to his bed-place and the second mate
      reduced to a state of permanent imbecility? It was impossible to imagine,
      or rather, it was only too easy to imagine.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was alone on the poop. The ship having no steerage way, I had sent the
      helmsman away to sit down or lie down somewhere in the shade. The men&rsquo;s
      strength was so reduced that all unnecessary calls on it had to be
      avoided. It was the austere Gambril with the grizzly beard. He went away
      readily enough, but he was so weakened by repeated bouts of fever, poor
      fellow, that in order to get down the poop ladder he had to turn sideways
      and hang on with both hands to the brass rail. It was just simply
      heart-breaking to watch. Yet he was neither very much worse nor much
      better than most of the half-dozen miserable victims I could muster up on
      deck.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a terribly lifeless afternoon. For several days in succession low
      clouds had appeared in the distance, white masses with dark convolutions
      resting on the water, motionless, almost solid, and yet all the time
      changing their aspects subtly. Toward evening they vanished as a rule. But
      this day they awaited the setting sun, which glowed and smouldered sulkily
      amongst them before it sank down. The punctual and wearisome stars
      reappeared over our mastheads, but the air remained stagnant and
      oppressive.
    </p>
    <p>
      The unfailing Ransome lighted the binnaclelamps and glided, all shadowy,
      up to me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Will you go down and try to eat something, sir?&rdquo; he suggested.
    </p>
    <p>
      His low voice startled me. I had been standing looking out over the rail,
      saying nothing, feeling nothing, not even the weariness of my limbs,
      overcome by the evil spell.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ransome,&rdquo; I asked abruptly, &ldquo;how long have I been on deck? I am losing
      the notion of time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Twelve days, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and it&rsquo;s just a fortnight since we left the
      anchorage.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      His equable voice sounded mournful somehow. He waited a bit, then added:
      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the first time that it looks as if we were to have some rain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I noticed then the broad shadow on the horizon, extinguishing the low
      stars completely, while those overhead, when I looked up, seemed to shine
      down on us through a veil of smoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      How it got there, how it had crept up so high, I couldn&rsquo;t say. It had an
      ominous appearance. The air did not stir. At a renewed invitation from
      Ransome I did go down into the cabin to&mdash;in his own words&mdash;&ldquo;try
      and eat something.&rdquo; I don&rsquo;t know that the trial was very successful. I
      suppose at that period I did exist on food in the usual way; but the
      memory is now that in those days life was sustained on invincible anguish,
      as a sort of infernal stimulant exciting and consuming at the same time.
    </p>
    <p>
      It&rsquo;s the only period of my life in which I attempted to keep a diary. No,
      not the only one. Years later, in conditions of moral isolation, I did put
      down on paper the thoughts and events of a score of days. But this was the
      first time. I don&rsquo;t remember how it came about or how the pocketbook and
      the pencil came into my hands. It&rsquo;s inconceivable that I should have
      looked for them on purpose. I suppose they saved me from the crazy trick
      of talking to myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Strangely enough, in both cases I took to that sort of thing in
      circumstances in which I did not expect, in colloquial phrase, &ldquo;to come
      out of it.&rdquo; Neither could I expect the record to outlast me. This shows
      that it was purely a personal need for intimate relief and not a call of
      egotism.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here I must give another sample of it, a few detached lines, now looking
      very ghostly to my own eyes, out of the part scribbled that very evening:
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is something going on in the sky like a decomposition; like a
      corruption of the air, which remains as still as ever. After all, mere
      clouds, which may or may not hold wind or rain. Strange that it should
      trouble me so. I feel as if all my sins had found me out. But I suppose
      the trouble is that the ship is still lying motionless, not under command;
      and that I have nothing to do to keep my imagination from running wild
      amongst the disastrous images of the worst that may befall us. What&rsquo;s
      going to happen? Probably nothing. Or anything. It may be a furious squall
      coming, butt end foremost. And on deck there are five men with the
      vitality and the strength of, say, two. We may have all our sails blown
      away. Every stitch of canvas has been on her since we broke ground at the
      mouth of the Mei-nam, fifteen days ago . . . or fifteen centuries. It
      seems to me that all my life before that momentous day is infinitely
      remote, a fading memory of light-hearted youth, something on the other
      side of a shadow. Yes, sails may very well be blown away. And that would
      be like a death sentence on the men. We haven&rsquo;t strength enough on board
      to bend another suit; incredible thought, but it is true. Or we may even
      get dismasted. Ships have been dismasted in squalls simply because they
      weren&rsquo;t handled quick enough, and we have no power to whirl the yards
      around. It&rsquo;s like being bound hand and foot preparatory to having one&rsquo;s
      throat cut. And what appals me most of all is that I shrink from going on
      deck to face it. It&rsquo;s due to the ship, it&rsquo;s due to the men who are there
      on deck&mdash;some of them, ready to put out the last remnant of their
      strength at a word from me. And I am shrinking from it. From the mere
      vision. My first command. Now I understand that strange sense of
      insecurity in my past. I always suspected that I might be no good. And
      here is proof positive. I am shirking it. I am no good.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      At that moment, or, perhaps, the moment after, I became aware of Ransome
      standing in the cabin. Something in his expression startled me. It had a
      meaning which I could not make out. I exclaimed: &ldquo;Somebody&rsquo;s dead.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was his turn then to look startled.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dead? Not that I know of, sir. I have been in the forecastle only ten
      minutes ago and there was no dead man there then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You did give me a scare,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      His voice was extremely pleasant to listen to. He explained that he had
      come down below to close Mr. Burns&rsquo; port in case it should come on to
      rain. &ldquo;He did not know that I was in the cabin,&rdquo; he added.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How does it look outside?&rdquo; I asked him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very black, indeed, sir. There is something in it for certain.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In what quarter?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All round, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I repeated idly: &ldquo;All round. For certain,&rdquo; with my elbows on the table.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ransome lingered in the cabin as if he had something to do there, but
      hesitated about doing it. I said suddenly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You think I ought to be on deck?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He answered at once but without any particular emphasis or accent: &ldquo;I do,
      sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I got to my feet briskly, and he made way for me to go out. As I passed
      through the lobby I heard Mr. Burns&rsquo; voice saying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shut the door of my room, will you, steward?&rdquo; And Ransome&rsquo;s rather
      surprised: &ldquo;Certainly, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I thought that all my feelings had been dulled into complete indifference.
      But I found it as trying as ever to be on deck. The impenetrable blackness
      beset the ship so close that it seemed that by thrusting one&rsquo;s hand over
      the side one could touch some unearthly substance. There was in it an
      effect of inconceivable terror and of inexpressible mystery. The few stars
      overhead shed a dim light upon the ship alone, with no gleams of any kind
      upon the water, in detached shafts piercing an atmosphere which had turned
      to soot. It was something I had never seen before, giving no hint of the
      direction from which any change would come, the closing in of a menace
      from all sides.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was still no man at the helm. The immobility of all things was
      perfect. If the air had turned black, the sea, for all I knew, might have
      turned solid. It was no good looking in any direction, watching for any
      sign, speculating upon the nearness of the moment. When the time came the
      blackness would overwhelm silently the bit of starlight falling upon the
      ship, and the end of all things would come without a sigh, stir, or murmur
      of any kind, and all our hearts would cease to beat like run-down clocks.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was impossible to shake off that sense of finality. The quietness that
      came over me was like a foretaste of annihilation. It gave me a sort of
      comfort, as though my soul had become suddenly reconciled to an eternity
      of blind stillness.
    </p>
    <p>
      The seaman&rsquo;s instinct alone survived whole in my moral dissolution. I
      descended the ladder to the quarter-deck. The starlight seemed to die out
      before reaching that spot, but when I asked quietly: &ldquo;Are you there, men?&rdquo;
       my eyes made out shadow forms starting up around me, very few, very
      indistinct; and a voice spoke: &ldquo;All here, sir.&rdquo; Another amended anxiously:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All that are any good for anything, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Both voices were very quiet and unringing; without any special character
      of readiness or discouragement. Very matter-of-fact voices.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We must try to haul this mainsail close up,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      The shadows swayed away from me without a word. Those men were the ghosts
      of themselves, and their weight on a rope could be no more than the weight
      of a bunch of ghosts. Indeed, if ever a sail was hauled up by sheer
      spiritual strength it must have been that sail, for, properly speaking,
      there was not muscle enough for the task in the whole ship let alone the
      miserable lot of us on deck. Of course, I took the lead in the work
      myself. They wandered feebly after me from rope to rope, stumbling and
      panting. They toiled like Titans. We were half-an-hour at it at least, and
      all the time the black universe made no sound. When the last leech-line
      was made fast, my eyes, accustomed to the darkness, made out the shapes of
      exhausted men drooping over the rails, collapsed on hatches. One hung over
      the after-capstan, sobbing for breath, and I stood amongst them like a
      tower of strength, impervious to disease and feeling only the sickness of
      my soul. I waited for some time fighting against the weight of my sins,
      against my sense of unworthiness, and then I said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, men, we&rsquo;ll go aft and square the mainyard. That&rsquo;s about all we can
      do for the ship; and for the rest she must take her chance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VI
    </h2>
    <p>
      As we all went up it occurred to me that there ought to be a man at the
      helm. I raised my voice not much above a whisper, and, noiselessly, an
      uncomplaining spirit in a fever-wasted body appeared in the light aft, the
      head with hollow eyes illuminated against the blackness which had
      swallowed up our world&mdash;and the universe. The bared forearm extended
      over the upper spokes seemed to shine with a light of its own.
    </p>
    <p>
      I murmured to that luminous appearance:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Keep the helm right amidships.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It answered in a tone of patient suffering:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Right amidships, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then I descended to the quarter-deck. It was impossible to tell whence the
      blow would come. To look round the ship was to look into a bottomless,
      black pit. The eye lost itself in inconceivable depths.
    </p>
    <p>
      I wanted to ascertain whether the ropes had been picked up off the deck.
      One could only do that by feeling with one&rsquo;s feet. In my cautious progress
      I came against a man in whom I recognized Ransome. He possessed an
      unimpaired physical solidity which was manifest to me at the contact. He
      was leaning against the quarter-deck capstan and kept silent. It was like
      a revelation. He was the collapsed figure sobbing for breath I had noticed
      before we went on the poop.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have been helping with the mainsail!&rdquo; I exclaimed in a low tone.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; sounded his quiet voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Man! What were you thinking of? You mustn&rsquo;t do that sort of thing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      After a pause he assented: &ldquo;I suppose I mustn&rsquo;t.&rdquo; Then after another short
      silence he added: &ldquo;I am all right now,&rdquo; quickly, between the tell-tale
      gasps.
    </p>
    <p>
      I could neither hear nor see anybody else; but when I spoke up, answering
      sad murmurs filled the quarter-deck, and its shadows seemed to shift here
      and there. I ordered all the halyards laid down on deck clear for running.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see to that, sir,&rdquo; volunteered Ransome in his natural, pleasant
      tone, which comforted one and aroused one&rsquo;s compassion, too, somehow.
    </p>
    <p>
      That man ought to have been in his bed, resting, and my plain duty was to
      send him there. But perhaps he would not have obeyed me; I had not the
      strength of mind to try. All I said was:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go about it quietly, Ransome.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Returning on the poop I approached Gambril. His face, set with hollow
      shadows in the light, looked awful, finally silenced. I asked him how he
      felt, but hardly expected an answer. Therefore, I was astonished at his
      comparative loquacity.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Them shakes leaves me as weak as a kitten, sir,&rdquo; he said, preserving
      finely that air of unconsciousness as to anything but his business a
      helmsman should never lose. &ldquo;And before I can pick up my strength that
      there hot fit comes along and knocks me over again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He sighed. There was no reproach in his tone, but the bare words were
      enough to give me a horrible pang of self-reproach. It held me dumb for a
      time. When the tormenting sensation had passed off I asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you feel strong enough to prevent the rudder taking charge if she gets
      sternway on her? It wouldn&rsquo;t do to get something smashed about the
      steering-gear now. We&rsquo;ve enough difficulties to cope with as it is.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He answered with just a shade of weariness that he was strong enough to
      hang on. He could promise me that she shouldn&rsquo;t take the wheel out of his
      hands. More he couldn&rsquo;t say.
    </p>
    <p>
      At that moment Ransome appeared quite close to me, stepping out of the
      darkness into visibility suddenly, as if just created with his composed
      face and pleasant voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      Every rope on deck, he said, was laid down clear for running, as far as
      one could make certain by feeling. It was impossible to see anything.
      Frenchy had stationed himself forward. He said he had a jump or two left
      in him yet.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here a faint smile altered for an instant the clear, firm design of
      Ransome&rsquo;s lips. With his serious clear, gray eyes, his serene temperament&mdash;he
      was a priceless man altogether. Soul as firm as the muscles of his body.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was the only man on board (except me, but I had to preserve my liberty
      of movement) who had a sufficiency of muscular strength to trust to. For a
      moment I thought I had better ask him to take the wheel. But the dreadful
      knowledge of the enemy he had to carry about him made me hesitate. In my
      ignorance of physiology it occurred to me that he might die suddenly, from
      excitement, at a critical moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      While this gruesome fear restrained the ready words on the tip of my
      tongue, Ransome stepped back two paces and vanished from my sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      At once an uneasiness possessed me, as if some support had been withdrawn.
      I moved forward, too, outside the circle of light, into the darkness that
      stood in front of me like a wall. In one stride I penetrated it. Such must
      have been the darkness before creation. It had closed behind me. I knew I
      was invisible to the man at the helm. Neither could I see anything. He was
      alone, I was alone, every man was alone where he stood. And every form was
      gone too, spar, sail, fittings, rails; everything was blotted out in the
      dreadful smoothness of that absolute night.
    </p>
    <p>
      A flash of lightning would have been a relief&mdash;I mean physically. I
      would have prayed for it if it hadn&rsquo;t been for my shrinking apprehension
      of the thunder. In the tension of silence I was suffering from it seemed
      to me that the first crash must turn me into dust.
    </p>
    <p>
      And thunder was, most likely, what would happen next. Stiff all over and
      hardly breathing, I waited with a horribly strained expectation. Nothing
      happened. It was maddening, but a dull, growing ache in the lower part of
      my face made me aware that I had been grinding my teeth madly enough, for
      God knows how long.
    </p>
    <p>
      It&rsquo;s extraordinary I should not have heard myself doing it; but I hadn&rsquo;t.
      By an effort which absorbed all my faculties I managed to keep my jaw
      still. It required much attention, and while thus engaged I became
      bothered by curious, irregular sounds of faint tapping on the deck. They
      could be heard single, in pairs, in groups. While I wondered at this
      mysterious devilry, I received a slight blow under the left eye and felt
      an enormous tear run down my cheek. Raindrops. Enormous. Forerunners of
      something. Tap. Tap. Tap. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      I turned about, and, addressing Gambrel earnestly, entreated him to &ldquo;hang
      on to the wheel.&rdquo; But I could hardly speak from emotion. The fatal moment
      had come. I held my breath. The tapping had stopped as unexpectedly as it
      had begun, and there was a renewed moment of intolerable suspense;
      something like an additional turn of the racking screw. I don&rsquo;t suppose I
      would have ever screamed, but I remember my conviction that there was
      nothing else for it but to scream.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly&mdash;how am I to convey it? Well, suddenly the darkness turned
      into water. This is the only suitable figure. A heavy shower, a downpour,
      comes along, making a noise. You hear its approach on the sea, in the air,
      too, I verily believe. But this was different. With no preliminary whisper
      or rustle, without a splash, and even without the ghost of impact, I
      became instantaneously soaked to the skin. Not a very difficult matter,
      since I was wearing only my sleeping suit. My hair got full of water in an
      instant, water streamed on my skin, it filled my nose, my ears, my eyes.
      In a fraction of a second I swallowed quite a lot of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to Gambril, he was fairly choked. He coughed pitifully, the broken
      cough of a sick man; and I beheld him as one sees a fish in an aquarium by
      the light of an electric bulb, an elusive, phosphorescent shape. Only he
      did not glide away. But something else happened. Both binnaclelamps went
      out. I suppose the water forced itself into them, though I wouldn&rsquo;t have
      thought that possible, for they fitted into the cowl perfectly.
    </p>
    <p>
      The last gleam of light in the universe had gone, pursued by a low
      exclamation of dismay from Gambril. I groped for him and seized his arm.
      How startlingly wasted it was.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want the light. All you need to do is to
      keep the wind, when it comes, at the back of your head. You understand?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aye, aye, sir. . . . But I should like to have a light,&rdquo; he added
      nervously.
    </p>
    <p>
      All that time the ship lay as steady as a rock. The noise of the water
      pouring off the sails and spars, flowing over the break of the poop, had
      stopped short. The poop scuppers gurgled and sobbed for a little while
      longer, and then perfect silence, joined to perfect immobility, proclaimed
      the yet unbroken spell of our helplessness, poised on the edge of some
      violent issue, lurking in the dark.
    </p>
    <p>
      I started forward restlessly. I did not need my sight to pace the poop of
      my ill-starred first command with perfect assurance. Every square foot of
      her decks was impressed indelibly on my brain, to the very grain and knots
      of the planks. Yet, all of a sudden, I fell clean over something, landing
      full length on my hands and face.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was something big and alive. Not a dog&mdash;more like a sheep, rather.
      But there were no animals in the ship. How could an animal. . . . It was
      an added and fantastic horror which I could not resist. The hair of my
      head stirred even as I picked myself up, awfully scared; not as a man is
      scared while his judgment, his reason still try to resist, but completely,
      boundlessly, and, as it were, innocently scared&mdash;like a little child.
    </p>
    <p>
      I could see It&mdash;that Thing! The darkness, of which so much had just
      turned into water, had thinned down a little. There It was! But I did not
      hit upon the notion of Mr. Burns issuing out of the companion on all fours
      till he attempted to stand up, and even then the idea of a bear crossed my
      mind first.
    </p>
    <p>
      He growled like one when I seized him round the body. He had buttoned
      himself up into an enormous winter overcoat of some woolly material, the
      weight of which was too much for his reduced state. I could hardly feel
      the incredibly thin lath of his body, lost within the thick stuff, but his
      growl had depth and substance: Confounded dump ship with a craven,
      tiptoeing crowd. Why couldn&rsquo;t they stamp and go with a brace? Wasn&rsquo;t there
      one Godforsaken lubber in the lot fit to raise a yell on a rope?
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Skulking&rsquo;s no good, sir,&rdquo; he attacked me directly. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t slink past
      the old murderous ruffian. It isn&rsquo;t the way. You must go for him boldly&mdash;as
      I did. Boldness is what you want. Show him that you don&rsquo;t care for any of
      his damned tricks. Kick up a jolly old row.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good God, Mr. Burns,&rdquo; I said angrily. &ldquo;What on earth are you up to? What
      do you mean by coming up on deck in this state?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Just that! Boldness. The only way to scare the old bullying rascal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I pushed him, still growling, against the rail. &ldquo;Hold on to it,&rdquo; I said
      roughly. I did not know what to do with him. I left him in a hurry, to go
      to Gambril, who had called faintly that he believed there was some wind
      aloft. Indeed, my own ears had caught a feeble flutter of wet canvas, high
      up overhead, the jingle of a slack chain sheet. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      These were eerie, disturbing, alarming sounds in the dead stillness of the
      air around me. All the instances I had heard of topmasts being whipped out
      of a ship while there was not wind enough on her deck to blow out a match
      rushed into my memory.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t see the upper sails, sir,&rdquo; declared Gambril shakily.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t move the helm. You&rsquo;ll be all right,&rdquo; I said confidently.
    </p>
    <p>
      The poor man&rsquo;s nerves were gone. Mine were not in much better case. It was
      the moment of breaking strain and was relieved by the abrupt sensation of
      the ship moving forward as if of herself under my feet. I heard plainly
      the soughing of the wind aloft, the low cracks of the upper spars taking
      the strain, long before I could feel the least draught on my face turned
      aft, anxious and sightless like the face of a blind man.
    </p>
    <p>
      Suddenly a louder-sounding note filled our ears, the darkness started
      streaming against our bodies, chilling them exceedingly. Both of us,
      Gambril and I, shivered violently in our clinging, soaked garments of thin
      cotton. I said to him:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You are all right now, my man. All you&rsquo;ve got to do is to keep the wind
      at the back of your head. Surely you are up to that. A child could steer
      this ship in smooth water.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He muttered: &ldquo;Aye! A healthy child.&rdquo; And I felt ashamed of having been
      passed over by the fever which had been preying on every man&rsquo;s strength
      but mine, in order that my remorse might be the more bitter, the feeling
      of unworthiness more poignant, and the sense of responsibility heavier to
      bear.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ship had gathered great way on her almost at once on the calm water. I
      felt her slipping through it with no other noise but a mysterious rustle
      alongside. Otherwise, she had no motion at all, neither lift nor roll. It
      was a disheartening steadiness which had lasted for eighteen days now; for
      never, never had we had wind enough in that time to raise the slightest
      run of the sea. The breeze freshened suddenly. I thought it was high time
      to get Mr. Burns off the deck. He worried me. I looked upon him as a
      lunatic who would be very likely to start roaming over the ship and break
      a limb or fall overboard.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was truly glad to find he had remained holding on where I had left him,
      sensibly enough. He was, however, muttering to himself ominously.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was discouraging. I remarked in a matter-of-fact tone:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have never had so much wind as this since we left the roads.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s some heart in it, too,&rdquo; he growled judiciously. It was a remark
      of a perfectly sane seaman. But he added immediately: &ldquo;It was about time I
      should come on deck. I&rsquo;ve been nursing my strength for this&mdash;just for
      this. Do you see it, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I said I did, and proceeded to hint that it would be advisable for him to
      go below now and take a rest.
    </p>
    <p>
      His answer was an indignant &ldquo;Go below! Not if I know it, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Very cheerful! He was a horrible nuisance. And all at once he started to
      argue. I could feel his crazy excitement in the dark.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know how to go about it, sir. How could you? All this
      whispering and tiptoeing is no good. You can&rsquo;t hope to slink past a
      cunning, wide-awake, evil brute like he was. You never heard him talk.
      Enough to make your hair stand on end. No! No! He wasn&rsquo;t mad. He was no
      more mad than I am. He was just downright wicked. Wicked so as to frighten
      most people. I will tell you what he was. He was nothing less than a thief
      and a murderer at heart. And do you think he&rsquo;s any different now because
      he&rsquo;s dead? Not he! His carcass lies a hundred fathom under, but he&rsquo;s just
      the same . . . in latitude 8 d 20&rsquo; north.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He snorted defiantly. I noted with weary resignation that the breeze had
      got lighter while he raved. He was at it again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I ought to have thrown the beggar out of the ship over the rail like a
      dog. It was only on account of the men. . . . Fancy having to read the
      Burial Service over a brute like that! . . . &lsquo;Our departed brother&rsquo; . . .
      I could have laughed. That was what he couldn&rsquo;t bear. I suppose I am the
      only man that ever stood up to laugh at him. When he got sick it used to
      scare that . . . brother. . . . Brother. . . . Departed. . . . Sooner call
      a shark brother.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The breeze had let go so suddenly that the way of the ship brought the wet
      sails heavily against the mast. The spell of deadly stillness had caught
      us up again. There seemed to be no escape.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hallo!&rdquo; exclaimed Mr. Burns in a startled voice. &ldquo;Calm again!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I addressed him as though he had been sane.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is the sort of thing we&rsquo;ve been having for seventeen days, Mr.
      Burns,&rdquo; I said with intense bitterness. &ldquo;A puff, then a calm, and in a
      moment, you&rsquo;ll see, she&rsquo;ll be swinging on her heel with her head away from
      her course to the devil somewhere.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He caught at the word. &ldquo;The old dodging Devil,&rdquo; he screamed piercingly and
      burst into such a loud laugh as I had never heard before. It was a
      provoking, mocking peal, with a hair-raising, screeching over-note of
      defiance. I stepped back, utterly confounded.
    </p>
    <p>
      Instantly there was a stir on the quarter-deck; murmurs of dismay. A
      distressed voice cried out in the dark below us: &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s that gone crazy,
      now?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Perhaps they thought it was their captain? Rush is not the word that could
      be applied to the utmost speed the poor fellows were up to; but in an
      amazing short time every man in the ship able to walk upright had found
      his way on to that poop.
    </p>
    <p>
      I shouted to them: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the mate. Lay hold of him a couple of you. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I expected this performance to end in a ghastly sort of fight. But Mr.
      Burns cut his derisive screeching dead short and turned upon them
      fiercely, yelling:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aha! Dog-gone ye! You&rsquo;ve found your tongues&mdash;have ye? I thought you
      were dumb. Well, then&mdash;laugh! Laugh&mdash;I tell you. Now then&mdash;all
      together. One, two, three&mdash;laugh!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A moment of silence ensued, of silence so profound that you could have
      heard a pin drop on the deck. Then Ransome&rsquo;s unperturbed voice uttered
      pleasantly the words:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think he has fainted, sir&mdash;&rdquo; The little motionless knot of men
      stirred, with low murmurs of relief. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got him under the arms. Get
      hold of his legs, some one.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Yes. It was a relief. He was silenced for a time&mdash;for a time. I could
      not have stood another peal of that insane screeching. I was sure of it;
      and just then Gambril, the austere Gambril, treated us to another vocal
      performance. He began to sing out for relief. His voice wailed pitifully
      in the darkness: &ldquo;Come aft somebody! I can&rsquo;t stand this. Here she&rsquo;ll be
      off again directly and I can&rsquo;t. . . .&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I dashed aft myself meeting on my way a hard gust of wind whose approach
      Gambril&rsquo;s ear had detected from afar and which filled the sails on the
      main in a series of muffled reports mingled with the low plaint of the
      spars. I was just in time to seize the wheel while Frenchy who had
      followed me caught up the collapsing Gambril. He hauled him out of the
      way, admonished him to lie still where he was, and then stepped up to
      relieve me, asking calmly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How am I to steer her, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dead before it for the present. I&rsquo;ll get you a light in a moment.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But going forward I met Ransome bringing up the spare binnacle lamp. That
      man noticed everything, attended to everything, shed comfort around him as
      he moved. As he passed me he remarked in a soothing tone that the stars
      were coming out. They were. The breeze was sweeping clear the sooty sky,
      breaking through the indolent silence of the sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      The barrier of awful stillness which had encompassed us for so many days
      as though we had been accursed, was broken. I felt that. I let myself fall
      on to the skylight seat. A faint white ridge of foam, thin, very thin,
      broke alongside. The first for ages&mdash;for ages. I could have cheered,
      if it hadn&rsquo;t been for the sense of guilt which clung to all my thoughts
      secretly. Ransome stood before me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What about the mate,&rdquo; I asked anxiously. &ldquo;Still unconscious?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, sir&mdash;it&rsquo;s funny,&rdquo; Ransome was evidently puzzled. &ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t
      spoken a word, and his eyes are shut. But it looks to me more like sound
      sleep than anything else.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I accepted this view as the least troublesome of any, or at any rate,
      least disturbing. Dead faint or deep slumber, Mr. Burns had to be left to
      himself for the present. Ransome remarked suddenly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believe you want a coat, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I believe I do,&rdquo; I sighed out.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I did not move. What I felt I wanted were new limbs. My arms and legs
      seemed utterly useless, fairly worn out. They didn&rsquo;t even ache. But I
      stood up all the same to put on the coat when Ransome brought it up. And
      when he suggested that he had better now &ldquo;take Gambril forward,&rdquo; I said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right. I&rsquo;ll help you to get him down on the main deck.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I found that I was quite able to help, too. We raised Gambril up between
      us. He tried to help himself along like a man but all the time he was
      inquiring piteously:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t let me go when we come to the ladder? You won&rsquo;t let me go when
      we come to the ladder?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The breeze kept on freshening and blew true, true to a hair. At daylight
      by careful manipulation of the helm we got the foreyards to run square by
      themselves (the water keeping smooth) and then went about hauling the
      ropes tight. Of the four men I had with me at night, I could see now only
      two. I didn&rsquo;t inquire as to the others. They had given in. For a time only
      I hoped.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our various tasks forward occupied us for hours, the two men with me moved
      so slow and had to rest so often. One of them remarked that &ldquo;every blamed
      thing in the ship felt about a hundred times heavier than its proper
      weight.&rdquo; This was the only complaint uttered. I don&rsquo;t know what we should
      have done without Ransome. He worked with us, silent, too, with a little
      smile frozen on his lips. From time to time I murmured to him: &ldquo;Go steady&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Take
      it easy, Ransome&rdquo;&mdash;and received a quick glance in reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      When we had done all we could do to make things safe, he disappeared into
      his galley. Some time afterward, going forward for a look round, I caught
      sight of him through the open door. He sat upright on the locker in front
      of the stove, with his head leaning back against the bulkhead. His eyes
      were closed; his capable hands held open the front of his thin cotton
      shirt baring tragically his powerful chest, which heaved in painful and
      laboured gasps. He didn&rsquo;t hear me.
    </p>
    <p>
      I retreated quietly and went straight on to the poop to relieve Frenchy,
      who by that time was beginning to look very sick. He gave me the course
      with great formality and tried to go off with a jaunty step, but reeled
      widely twice before getting out of my sight.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then I remained all alone aft, steering my ship, which ran before the
      wind with a buoyant lift now and then, and even rolling a little.
      Presently Ransome appeared before me with a tray. The sight of food made
      me ravenous all at once. He took the wheel while I sat down of the after
      grating to eat my breakfast.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This breeze seems to have done for our crowd,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;It just laid
      them low&mdash;all hands.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I suppose you and I are the only two fit men in the ship.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Frenchy says there&rsquo;s still a jump left in him. I don&rsquo;t know. It can&rsquo;t be
      much,&rdquo; continued Ransome with his wistful smile. &ldquo;Good little man that.
      But suppose, sir, that this wind flies round when we are close to the land&mdash;what
      are we going to do with her?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If the wind shifts round heavily after we close in with the land she will
      either run ashore or get dismasted or both. We won&rsquo;t be able to do
      anything with her. She&rsquo;s running away with us now. All we can do is to
      steer her. She&rsquo;s a ship without a crew.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. All laid low,&rdquo; repeated Ransome quietly. &ldquo;I do give them a look-in
      forward every now and then, but it&rsquo;s precious little I can do for them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I, and the ship, and every one on board of her, are very much indebted to
      you, Ransome,&rdquo; I said warmly.
    </p>
    <p>
      He made as though he had not heard me, and steered in silence till I was
      ready to relieve him. He surrendered the wheel, picked up the tray, and
      for a parting shot informed me that Mr. Burns was awake and seemed to have
      a mind to come up on deck.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how to prevent him, sir. I can&rsquo;t very well stop down below
      all the time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was clear that he couldn&rsquo;t. And sure enough Mr. Burns came on deck
      dragging himself painfully aft in his enormous overcoat. I beheld him with
      a natural dread. To have him around and raving about the wiles of a dead
      man while I had to steer a wildly rushing ship full of dying men was a
      rather dreadful prospect.
    </p>
    <p>
      But his first remarks were quite sensible in meaning and tone. Apparently
      he had no recollection of the night scene. And if he had he didn&rsquo;t betray
      himself once. Neither did he talk very much. He sat on the skylight
      looking desperately ill at first, but that strong breeze, before which the
      last remnant of my crew had wilted down, seemed to blow a fresh stock of
      vigour into his frame with every gust. One could almost see the process.
    </p>
    <p>
      By way of sanity test I alluded on purpose to the late captain. I was
      delighted to find that Mr. Burns did not display undue interest in the
      subject. He ran over the old tale of that savage ruffian&rsquo;s iniquities with
      a certain vindictive gusto and then concluded unexpectedly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do believe, sir, that his brain began to go a year or more before he
      died.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A wonderful recovery. I could hardly spare it as much admiration as it
      deserved, for I had to give all my mind to the steering.
    </p>
    <p>
      In comparison with the hopeless languour of the preceding days this was
      dizzy speed. Two ridges of foam streamed from the ship&rsquo;s bows; the wind
      sang in a strenuous note which under other circumstances would have
      expressed to me all the joy of life. Whenever the hauled-up mainsail
      started trying to slat and bang itself to pieces in its gear, Mr. Burns
      would look at me apprehensively.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What would you have me to do, Mr. Burns? We can neither furl it nor set
      it. I only wish the old thing would thrash itself to pieces and be done
      with it. That beastly racket confuses me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns wrung his hands, and cried out suddenly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How will you get the ship into harbour, sir, without men to handle her?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And I couldn&rsquo;t tell him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well&mdash;it did get done about forty hours afterward. By the exorcising
      virtue of Mr. Burns&rsquo; awful laugh, the malicious spectre had been laid, the
      evil spell broken, the curse removed. We were now in the hands of a kind
      and energetic Providence. It was rushing us on. . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      I shall never forget the last night, dark, windy, and starry. I steered.
      Mr. Burns, after having obtained from me a solemn promise to give him a
      kick if anything happened, went frankly to sleep on the deck close to the
      binnacle. Convalescents need sleep. Ransome, his back propped against the
      mizzen-mast and a blanket over his legs, remained perfectly still, but I
      don&rsquo;t suppose he closed his eyes for a moment. That embodiment of
      jauntiness, Frenchy, still under the delusion that there was a &ldquo;jump&rdquo; left
      in him, had insisted on joining us; but mindful of discipline, had laid
      himself down as far on the forepart of the poop as he could get, alongside
      the bucket-rack.
    </p>
    <p>
      And I steered, too tired for anxiety, too tired for connected thought. I
      had moments of grim exultation and then my heart would sink awfully at the
      thought of that forecastle at the other end of the dark deck, full of
      fever-stricken men&mdash;some of them dying. By my fault. But never mind.
      Remorse must wait. I had to steer.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the small hours the breeze weakened, then failed altogether. About five
      it returned, gentle enough, enabling us to head for the roadstead.
      Daybreak found Mr. Burns sitting wedged up with coils of rope on the
      stern-grating, and from the depths of his overcoat steering the ship with
      very white bony hands; while Ransome and I rushed along the decks letting
      go all the sheets and halliards by the run. We dashed next up on to the
      forecastle head. The perspiration of labour and sheer nervousness simply
      poured off our heads as we toiled to get the anchors cock-billed. I dared
      not look at Ransome as we worked side by side. We exchanged curt words; I
      could hear him panting close to me and I avoided turning my eyes his way
      for fear of seeing him fall down and expire in the act of putting forth
      his strength&mdash;for what? Indeed for some distinct ideal.
    </p>
    <p>
      The consummate seaman in him was aroused. He needed no directions. He knew
      what to do. Every effort, every movement was an act of consistent heroism.
      It was not for me to look at a man thus inspired.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last all was ready and I heard him say:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hadn&rsquo;t I better go down and open the compressors now, sir?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. Do,&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      And even then I did not glance his way. After a time his voice came up
      from the main deck.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When you like, sir. All clear on the windlass here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I made a sign to Mr. Burns to put the helm down and let both anchors go
      one after another, leaving the ship to take as much cable as she wanted.
      She took the best part of them both before she brought up. The loose sails
      coming aback ceased their maddening racket above my head. A perfect
      stillness reigned in the ship. And while I stood forward feeling a little
      giddy in that sudden peace, I caught faintly a moan or two and the
      incoherent mutterings of the sick in the forecastle.
    </p>
    <p>
      As we had a signal for medical assistance flying on the mizzen it is a
      fact that before the ship was fairly at rest three steam launches from
      various men-of-war were alongside; and at least five naval surgeons had
      clambered on board. They stood in a knot gazing up and down the empty main
      deck, then looked aloft&mdash;where not a man could be seen, either.
    </p>
    <p>
      I went toward them&mdash;a solitary figure, in a blue and gray striped
      sleeping suit and a pipe-clayed cork helmet on its head. Their disgust was
      extreme. They had expected surgical cases. Each one had brought his
      carving tools with him. But they soon got over their little
      disappointment. In less than five minutes one of the steam launches was
      rushing shoreward to order a big boat and some hospital people for the
      removal of the crew. The big steam pinnace went off to her ship to bring
      over a few bluejackets to furl my sails for me.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the surgeons had remained on board. He came out of the forecastle
      looking impenetrable, and noticed my inquiring gaze.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nobody dead in there, if that&rsquo;s what you want to know,&rdquo; he said
      deliberately. Then added in a tone of wonder: &ldquo;The whole crew!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And very bad?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And very bad,&rdquo; he repeated. His eyes were roaming all over the ship.
      &ldquo;Heavens! What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; I said, glancing aft, &ldquo;is Mr. Burns, my chief officer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Burns with his moribund head nodding on the stalk of his lean neck was
      a sight for any one to exclaim at. The surgeon asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is he going to the hospital, too?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; I said jocosely. &ldquo;Mr. Burns can&rsquo;t go on shore till the mainmast
      goes. I am very proud of him. He&rsquo;s my only convalescent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You look&mdash;&rdquo; began the doctor staring at me. But I interrupted him
      angrily:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am not ill.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. . . . You look queer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you see, I have been seventeen days on deck.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Seventeen! . . . But you must have slept.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I suppose I must have. I don&rsquo;t know. But I&rsquo;m certain that I didn&rsquo;t sleep
      for the last forty hours.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Phew! . . . You will be going ashore presently I suppose?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As soon as ever I can. There&rsquo;s no end of business waiting for me there.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The surgeon released my hand, which he had taken while we talked, pulled
      out his pocket-book, wrote in it rapidly, tore out the page and offered it
      to me.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I strongly advise you to get this prescription made up for yourself
      ashore. Unless I am much mistaken you will need it this evening.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it, then?&rdquo; I asked with suspicion.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sleeping draught,&rdquo; answered the surgeon curtly; and moving with an air of
      interest toward Mr. Burns he engaged him in conversation.
    </p>
    <p>
      As I went below to dress to go ashore, Ransome followed me. He begged my
      pardon; he wished, too, to be sent ashore and paid off.
    </p>
    <p>
      I looked at him in surprise. He was waiting for my answer with an air of
      anxiety.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean to leave the ship!&rdquo; I cried out.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do really, sir. I want to go and be quiet somewhere. Anywhere. The
      hospital will do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But, Ransome,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I hate the idea of parting with you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I must go,&rdquo; he broke in. &ldquo;I have a right!&rdquo; . . . He gasped and a look of
      almost savage determination passed over his face. For an instant he was
      another being. And I saw under the worth and the comeliness of the man the
      humble reality of things. Life was a boon to him&mdash;this precarious
      hard life, and he was thoroughly alarmed about himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course I shall pay you off if you wish it,&rdquo; I hastened to say. &ldquo;Only I
      must ask you to remain on board till this afternoon. I can&rsquo;t leave Mr.
      Burns absolutely by himself in the ship for hours.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He softened at once and assured me with a smile and in his natural
      pleasant voice that he understood that very well.
    </p>
    <p>
      When I returned on deck everything was ready for the removal of the men.
      It was the last ordeal of that episode which had been maturing and
      tempering my character&mdash;though I did not know it.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was awful. They passed under my eyes one after another&mdash;each of
      them an embodied reproach of the bitterest kind, till I felt a sort of
      revolt wake up in me. Poor Frenchy had gone suddenly under. He was carried
      past me insensible, his comic face horribly flushed and as if swollen,
      breathing stertorously. He looked more like Mr. Punch than ever; a
      disgracefully intoxicated Mr. Punch.
    </p>
    <p>
      The austere Gambril, on the contrary, had improved temporarily. He
      insisted on walking on his own feet to the rail&mdash;of course with
      assistance on each side of him. But he gave way to a sudden panic at the
      moment of being swung over the side and began to wail pitifully:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let them drop me, sir. Don&rsquo;t let them drop me, sir!&rdquo; While I kept
      on shouting to him in most soothing accents: &ldquo;All right, Gambril. They
      won&rsquo;t! They won&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was no doubt very ridiculous. The bluejackets on our deck were grinning
      quietly, while even Ransome himself (much to the fore in lending a hand)
      had to enlarge his wistful smile for a fleeting moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      I left for the shore in the steam pinnace, and on looking back beheld Mr.
      Burns actually standing up by the taffrail, still in his enormous woolly
      overcoat. The bright sunlight brought out his weirdness amazingly. He
      looked like a frightful and elaborate scarecrow set up on the poop of a
      death-stricken ship, set up to keep the seabirds from the corpses.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our story had got about already in town and everybody on shore was most
      kind. The Marine Office let me off the port dues, and as there happened to
      be a shipwrecked crew staying in the Home I had no difficulty in obtaining
      as many men as I wanted. But when I inquired if I could see Captain Ellis
      for a moment I was told in accents of pity for my ignorance that our
      deputy-Neptune had retired and gone home on a pension about three weeks
      after I left the port. So I suppose that my appointment was the last act,
      outside the daily routine, of his official life.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is strange how on coming ashore I was struck by the springy step, the
      lively eyes, the strong vitality of every one I met. It impressed me
      enormously. And amongst those I met there was Captain Giles, of course. It
      would have been very extraordinary if I had not met him. A prolonged
      stroll in the business part of the town was the regular employment of all
      his mornings when he was ashore.
    </p>
    <p>
      I caught the glitter of the gold watch-chain across his chest ever so far
      away. He radiated benevolence.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is it I hear?&rdquo; he queried with a &ldquo;kind uncle&rdquo; smile, after shaking
      hands. &ldquo;Twenty-one days from Bangkok?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is this all you&rsquo;ve heard?&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You must come to tiffin with me. I
      want you to know exactly what you have let me in for.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He hesitated for almost a minute.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well&mdash;I will,&rdquo; he said condescendingly at last.
    </p>
    <p>
      We turned into the hotel. I found to my surprise that I could eat quite a
      lot. Then over the cleared table-cloth I unfolded to Captain Giles the
      history of these twenty days in all its professional and emotional
      aspects, while he smoked patiently the big cigar I had given him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then he observed sagely:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You must feel jolly well tired by this time.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Not tired. But I&rsquo;ll tell you, Captain Giles, how I feel. I
      feel old. And I must be. All of you on shore look to me just a lot of
      skittish youngsters that have never known a care in the world.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He didn&rsquo;t smile. He looked insufferably exemplary. He declared:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That will pass. But you do look older&mdash;it&rsquo;s a fact.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aha!&rdquo; I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! No! The truth is that one must not make too much of anything in life,
      good or bad.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Live at half-speed,&rdquo; I murmured perversely. &ldquo;Not everybody can do that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be glad enough presently if you can keep going even at that rate,&rdquo;
       he retorted with his air of conscious virtue. &ldquo;And there&rsquo;s another thing:
      a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience
      and all that sort of thing. Why&mdash;what else would you have to fight
      against.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I kept silent. I don&rsquo;t know what he saw in my face but he asked abruptly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why&mdash;you aren&rsquo;t faint-hearted?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God only knows, Captain Giles,&rdquo; was my sincere answer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; he said calmly. &ldquo;You will learn soon how not to be
      faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything&mdash;and that&rsquo;s what so
      many of them youngsters don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I am no longer a youngster.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he conceded. &ldquo;Are you leaving soon?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am going on board directly,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I shall pick up one of my anchors
      and heave in to half-cable on the other directly my new crew comes on
      board and I shall be off at daylight to-morrow!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You will,&rdquo; grunted Captain Giles approvingly, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s the way. You&rsquo;ll
      do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What did you think? That I would want to take a week ashore for a rest?&rdquo;
       I said, irritated by his tone. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no rest for me till she&rsquo;s out in
      the Indian Ocean and not much of it even then.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He puffed at his cigar moodily, as if transformed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. That&rsquo;s what it amounts to,&rdquo; he said in a musing tone. It was as if a
      ponderous curtain had rolled up disclosing an unexpected Captain Giles.
      But it was only for a moment, just the time to let him add, &ldquo;Precious
      little rest in life for anybody. Better not think of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      We rose, left the hotel, and parted from each other in the street with a
      warm handshake, just as he began to interest me for the first time in our
      intercourse.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first thing I saw when I got back to the ship was Ransome on the
      quarter-deck sitting quietly on his neatly lashed sea-chest.
    </p>
    <p>
      I beckoned him to follow me into the saloon where I sat down to write a
      letter of recommendation for him to a man I knew on shore.
    </p>
    <p>
      When finished I pushed it across the table. &ldquo;It may be of some good to you
      when you leave the hospital.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He took it, put it in his pocket. His eyes were looking away from me&mdash;nowhere.
      His face was anxiously set.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How are you feeling now?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel bad now, sir,&rdquo; he answered stiffly. &ldquo;But I am afraid of its
      coming on. . . .&rdquo; The wistful smile came back on his lips for a moment. &ldquo;I&mdash;I
      am in a blue funk about my heart, sir.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I approached him with extended hand. His eyes not looking at me had a
      strained expression. He was like a man listening for a warning call.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you shake hands, Ransome?&rdquo; I said gently.
    </p>
    <p>
      He exclaimed, flushed up dusky red, gave my hand a hard wrench&mdash;and
      next moment, left alone in the cabin, I listened to him going up the
      companion stairs cautiously, step by step, in mortal fear of starting into
      sudden anger our common enemy it was his hard fate to carry consciously
      within his faithful breast.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadow Line, by Joseph Conrad

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHADOW LINE ***

***** This file should be named 451-h.htm or 451-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/451/

Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &ldquo;Project
Gutenberg&rdquo;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&ldquo;the Foundation&rdquo;
 or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; appears, or with which the phrase &ldquo;Project
Gutenberg&rdquo; is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
&ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original &ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, &ldquo;Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.&rdquo;
 
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
&ldquo;Defects,&rdquo; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &ldquo;Right
of Replacement or Refund&rdquo; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &lsquo;AS-IS&rsquo; WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm&rsquo;s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation&rsquo;s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state&rsquo;s laws.

The Foundation&rsquo;s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation&rsquo;s web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.


Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.


Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     http://www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.


</pre>
  </body>
</html>
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-05-21 01:36:09 +0000