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-                               UNDER SAIL
-
-
-
-
-This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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
-http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United
-States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are
-located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Under Sail
-Author: Lincoln Colcord
-Release Date: August 20, 2014 [EBook #46694]
-Language: English
-Character set encoding: US-ASCII
-
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER SAIL ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Al Haines.
-
-
-
-
-
-          [Transcriber's note: The source book's idiosyncratic
-              punctuation has been preserved as printed.]
-
-
-
-
-                               UNDER SAIL
-
-
-                                   BY
-
-                            LINCOLN COLCORD
-
-
-
-                                 LONDON
-                      EVELEIGH NASH & GRAYSON LTD.
-                               148 STRAND
-                                  1922
-
-
-
-
-                       _Copyright in the U.S.A._
-                        By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
-
-
-
-
-                               *CONTENTS*
-
-AN INSTRUMENT OF THE GODS
-THE UNCHARTED ISLE
-SERVANT AND MASTER
-RESCUE AT SEA
-UNDER SAIL
-ANJER
-
-
-
-
-                      *AN INSTRUMENT OF THE GODS*
-
-
-
-                      *AN INSTRUMENT OF THE GODS*
-
-                                  *I*
-
-
-"The longer I live" said Nichols from the darkness of his corner "the
-less of difference I see between the East and the West.  I've been
-listening closely to you fellows.  We are fond of saying that we don't
-understand the Oriental; but, let me ask you, do we fully understand our
-best friends--even ourselves?  Whose fault is it? Or, failing to
-understand the Oriental, is it logical for us to consign him to a
-different sphere of human nature?  Of course, it's the easiest way to
-dodge the real answer...."
-
-The old _Omega_ had drifted that morning past Green Island, dropping
-anchor a little later among the fleet off Stonecutter's; and after
-dinner, moved by a common impulse, we had called our sampans and joined
-Nichols under her spacious after awning.  There, with the broad
-land-locked harbour of Hong Kong under a half moon reflecting the
-perfect outline of the Peak, talk had wandered lazily along the range of
-our shipping activities, to reach at last, as it always did in such
-company, that world-old problem of the races of men.
-
-"I think I know the race of Chinamen" Nichols went on, while grunts of
-assent from several quarters of the deck gave testimony to his
-reputation.  "Oh, yes, I know them.  They are made of flesh and blood,
-if you'll believe me; they eat with their mouths, and think in the
-recesses of their skulls, just as we do.  They marry, beget children,
-and pass through life. They love, fight, strive for gain, sin, suffer,
-learn lessons, regret, make restitution, are tempted by devils, struggle
-and triumph, or give up in despair, and finally die with their years and
-their secrets on their heads.  The same old conscience pursues them.
-Yes, they are eaten up, like us, by the savage and devastating contest
-with self, the flesh and the spirit striving for the mastery; and out of
-the contest, like fire struck from clashing swords, come the sparks of
-ideas, of aspirations, of creative efforts, of wonder and joy, pain and
-fear, of all the infinite play of this star-spangled life of ours
-against the soft darkness of the unknown sky....  You fellows have been
-discussing only superficialities.  At heart, you and the Oriental are
-the same.  The Chinese are romantic, I tell you; they are heroic, they
-are incorrigibly imaginative.  You think not?  Let me tell you a tale"
-
-Suddenly Nichols laughed, a snort that might have been of self-derision.
-"You won't be convinced" he chuckled  "I see it already.  You'll derive
-from this tale, no doubt, only further confirmation of the unlikeness
-you imagine.  So be it.  I merely warn you not to be too sure.  Strip my
-friend Lee Fu Chang naked, for instance, destroy and forget about that
-long silken coat of his, embroidered so wonderfully with hills and trees
-and dragons, dress him in a cowboy's suit and locate him in the Rocky
-Mountain region of fifty years ago, and the game he played with Captain
-Wilbur won't seem so inappropriate.  It's only that you won't expect a
-mandarin Chinaman to play it.  You'll feel that China is too old and
-civilized for what he did...."
-
-
-
-
-                                  *II*
-
-
-"Some of you fellows must remember the notorious case of Captain Wilbur
-and the ship _Speedwell_" Nichols began  "For years it was spoken of
-among sailors as a classic instance of nautical perfidy; and this was
-the port, you know, where Wilbur first brought the ship after he'd
-stolen her, and settled down to brazen out his crime.  But few men have
-heard how he lost her in the end, or why he disappeared for ever from
-the life of the sea.
-
-"Perhaps I'd better refresh your memories; let's go back a matter of
-forty years.  Captain Wilbur was a well-known shipmaster of those palmy
-days.  He had commanded the _Speedwell_ for a decade, and possessed a
-reputation for sterling seamanship and unblemished integrity. His vessel
-was one of the finest moderate clippers ever launched on the shores of
-New England. But she was growing old; and Wilbur himself had suffered
-serious financial reverses, although this fact wasn't known till after
-the escapade that estranged his friends and set our little world by the
-ears.  He seems to have been something of a gambler in investments, and
-by bad judgment or ill luck had brought his fortune to the verge of ruin
-if not of actual disgrace.  This, so far as I know, stands as the sole
-explanation of his amazing downfall.  There was nothing else the matter
-with him, physically or mentally, as you shall hear.
-
-"Out of a clear sky, this was what he did: he deliberately put the
-_Speedwell_ ashore in Ombay Pass, on a voyage home from Singapore to New
-York with a light general cargo, and abandoned her as she lay.  I say he
-did it deliberately; this is the common surmise, and subsequent
-developments lend point to the accusation.  It may have been, however,
-that she actually drifted ashore, and that he didn't try at the time to
-get her off. Whether he planned the disaster, or whether he succumbed to
-a temptation thrust in his face by the devil of chance, makes little
-difference.  His plans were deliberate enough after the event.
-
-"Within a month after sailing for home, he was back again in Singapore
-with his ship's company in three longboats and a tale of a lost vessel.
-There he remained for three months, cleaning up the business.  No breath
-of scandal was raised against him; Ombay Pass on the turn of the monsoon
-had caught many a fine vessel before this one, and the account rendered
-by his officers and crew was straightforward and consistent.  The
-_Speedwell_, according to the official record, had drifted ashore in a
-light breeze, before the unmanageable currents of that region, and had
-lodged on a coral reef at the top of the tide in such a position that
-she couldn't be got off. It was another case of total loss of ship and
-cargo; in those days there were no steam craft in the East to send on a
-mission of salvage, and the Eastern Passages were forbidden hunting
-ground.  What they caught they were allowed to keep, with no words said
-and the page closed. The insurance companies stood the strain, the
-ship's affairs were settled without a hitch, and the name of the
-_Speedwell_ passed simultaneously from the Maritime Register and from
-the books of her owners in America.  Captain Wilbur let it be known that
-he was going home, and left Singapore.
-
-"It was his remarkable destiny to be the revealer of his own perfidy; he
-made no bones about the job.  Instead of going home, he went to Batavia,
-and there hired a schooner and crew with the proceeds of his personal
-holding in the _Speedwell_.  This schooner and crew he took immediately
-to Ombay Pass.  They found the ship still resting in the same position.
-What they did there must remain a mystery; I have the tale only in
-fragmentary form from the Lascar who was serang of Wilbur's native crew.
-
-"He, it would seem, was overawed by the extent of the engineering
-operations in which he participated; his description partook of the
-colour and extravagance of a myth.  Alone in distant waters they had
-wrestled like heroes with a monstrous task; day had followed day, while
-the great ship remained motionless and the elements paused to observe
-the stupendous effort.  They had unloaded the cargo: they had sent down
-the top-hamper and rafted it alongside; they had patched and pumped, and
-Wilbur himself had dived in the lower hold and under the bows to place
-the stoppers in their proper position.  So far as I can reckon, it took
-them a couple of months to get her off; but, by Jove, they floated
-her--a magnificent feat of sailorizing.  Then they loaded the cargo
-again, and came away.
-
-"When Captain Wilbur appeared one morning off Batavia roadstead with the
-_Speedwell_ under top-gallantsails, towing the schooner, it was the
-sensation of the port; a sensation that flew like wildfire about the
-China Sea, as it became clear what he intended to do with her.  For he
-proposed, incredible and unaccountable as it seems, to hold the ship and
-cargo as salvage; and nothing, apparently, could be done about it.  She
-was actually the property of himself and the Lascar crew.
-
-"The crowd alongshore, everyone interested in shipping, of course turned
-violently against him; for a time there was wild talk of extra-legal
-proceedings, and Wilbur might have fared ill had he attempted to
-frequent his old haunts just then. But he snapped his fingers at them
-all.  He found plenty of men who were willing to advance him credit on
-the security of the ship: he bought off his crew with liberal
-allowances, took the _Speedwell_ to Hong Kong and put her in drydock,
-and soon was ready for business with a fine vessel of his own.  Well, he
-knew that personal repugnance wouldn't be carried to commercial lengths;
-that he and the ship, by cutting freights a little, could find plenty to
-do.  As for the rest of it, the moral score, he seemed cheerfully
-prepared to face the music, and probably foresaw that with the passage
-of time he would be able to live down the record.
-
-"The old _Omega_ and I were down the China Sea on a trading voyage while
-these events were taking place.  When we got back to Hong Kong, Wilbur
-had already sailed for Antwerp, leaving his story to swell the scandal
-and fire the indignation of the water-front.  I heard it first from my
-friend, Lee Fu Chang.
-
-"'An extraordinary incident, is it not?' exclaimed Lee Fu in conclusion
-'Extraordinary! I am deeply interested.  First of all, I am interested
-in your laws.  Here is a man who has stolen a ship; and your laws, it is
-discovered, support him in the act.  But the man himself is the most
-interesting.  It is a crowning stroke, Captain Nichols, that he has not
-seen fit to change the name of the vessel.  Consider this fact.  All is
-as it was before, when the well-known and reputable Captain Wilbur
-commanded the fine ship _Speedwell_ on voyages to the East'
-
-"'Can it be possible?' said I  'Isn't there some mistake?  The man must
-have the gall of a highway robber!  Does the crowd have anything to do
-with him?'
-
-"'None of his old associates speak in passing; they cross the street to
-avoid him.  He goes about like one afflicted with a pestilence.  But the
-wonder is that he is not disturbed by this treatment.  That makes it
-very extraordinary. He is neither cringing nor brazen; he makes no
-protests, offers no excuse, and takes no notice. In the face of
-outrageous insult, Captain, he maintains an air of dignity and reserve,
-like a man conscious of inner rectitude'
-
-"'Did you talk with him, Lee Fu?' I asked.
-
-"'Oh, yes.  In fact, I cultivated his acquaintance. The study fascinated
-me; it relieved, as it were, the daily monotony of virtue.  In him there
-is no trace of humbug or humility.  Do not think that he is a simple
-man.  His heart in this matter is unfathomable ... well worth sounding'
-
-"'By Jove, I believe you liked him!' I exclaimed.
-
-"'No, not that'  Lee Fu folded his hands within the long sleeves of his
-embroidered coat and rested them across his stomach in a characteristic
-attitude of meditation.  'No, quite the opposite.  I abhorred him.  He
-seemed to me unnatural, monstrous, beyond the range of common measure.
-Captain, there are crimes and crimes, and it has been my lot to know men
-who have committed many of them.  There are murder, theft, arson,
-treason, infidelity, and all the rest; and these, in a manner of
-speaking, are natural crimes.  Shall we define it thus: a natural crime
-is one which eventually brings its own retribution?  Sooner or later, if
-justice is not done, the natural crime works havoc with its perpetrator;
-it plagues his conscience, it fastens like a fungus on his soul.
-Through lust or passion, natural impulses, he has committed error; but
-he cannot escape the final payment of the price.  On the other hand,
-there are unnatural crimes, crimes for which there is no reason, crimes
-requiring no liquidation; and there are unnatural criminals, feeling no
-remorse.  Such a criminal, I take it, is this Captain Wilbur, who goes
-his way in peace from the betrayal of a sacred trust'
-
-"'Aren't you drawing it a little strong?' I laughed 'It isn't exactly a
-crime...'
-
-"Lee Fu smiled quietly, giving me a glance that was a mere flicker of
-the eyelids.  'Perhaps not to you' said he  'Fixed in the mind of your
-race is a scale of violence by which to measure the errors of men; if no
-blood flows, then it is not so bad.  Your justice is still a barbarian.
-Thus you constantly underestimate the deeper crimes, allowing your
-master criminals to go scathless, or even, in some instances, to prosper
-and win repute by their machinations.  But, let me tell you, Captain,
-murder is brave and honourable compared with this.  Consider what he
-did. Trained to the sea and ships, after a lifetime of honourable
-service to his traditions, he suddenly forsakes them utterly.  Because
-the matter rests with him alone, because there is nothing in it for him
-to fear, his serenity condemns his very soul. He has fallen from heaven
-to hell; flagrantly, remorselessly, and without attempt at concealment
-or evasion, he has played false with sacred honour and holy life.  It is
-blasphemy that he has committed; when the master of the ship is not to
-be trusted, the gods tremble in the sky. So I abhor him--and am
-fascinated.  He does not speak of his crime, of course, yet I find
-myself waiting and watching for a hint, an explanation.  Believe me,
-Captain, when I tell you, that in all my talk with him I have received
-not a single flash of illumination; no, not one! There is no key to his
-design.  He speaks of his ship and her affairs as other captains do.  He
-is a tall, jovial, healthy man, with frank glances and open speech.  For
-all that seems, he might have forgotten what went on at Ombay Pass.  I
-swear to you that his heart is untroubled.  As you would say, he does
-not care a damn....  And that is horrible'
-
-"A little amused at my friend's moral fervour, I adopted a bantering
-tone.  'Perhaps the man is innocent' said I  'Perhaps there's something
-unexplained....'
-
-"'You forget that he holds the vessel as his property--the same vessel
-that he himself ran on shore' Lee Fu reminded me  'You are still
-thinking, Captain, of violence and blood.  No one was lost, no shots
-were fired ... so, never mind.  It is not vital to you that a strong man
-within your circle has murdered the spirit; you refuse to become excited
-or alarmed ... Wait then till actual blood flows'
-
-"'What do you mean by that, Lee Fu?  You think...?'
-
-"'I think Captain Wilbur will bear watching. In the meantime, take my
-advice, and study him when opportunity offers.  Thus we learn of heaven
-and hell'"
-
-
-
-
-                                 *III*
-
-
-"A few years went by, while the case of Captain Wilbur and the
-_Speedwell_ passed through its initial stages of being forgotten.
-Nothing succeeds like success; the man owned a fine ship, and those who
-did business with him soon came to take the situation for granted.
-Wilbur made fast passages, kept the _Speedwell_ in excellent trim, and
-paid his bills promptly; rumour of course had it that he was growing
-rich. In all probability it was true.  After a while, some of his old
-friends were willing to let bygones be bygones; there were many more to
-whom the possession of a fine piece of property seemed of enough
-importance to cover a multitude of sins.  The new fellows who came to
-the East and heard the tale for the first time couldn't credit it after
-meeting Wilbur in the flesh. Little by little one began to see him again
-on the quarter-deck at the evening gatherings of the fleet, or among
-seafaring men ashore at tiffin. When, in time, it became unwise to start
-the story against him, for fear of misconstruction of one's motive, it
-was evident that he had well-nigh won his nefarious match against
-society.
-
-"I'd met him a number of times, of course, during this interval, and had
-come to understand Lee Fu's urgent advice.  Indeed, for one curious
-about the habits of the human species, Wilbur compelled attention.  That
-perfect urbanity, that air of unfailing dignity and confidence, that
-aura of a commanding personality, of an able ship-master among his
-brethren, of a man whose position in the world was secure beyond
-peradventure: all this could spring from one of only two spiritual
-conditions--either from a quiet and innocent conscience, or from a heart
-perfectly attuned to villainy.  As he sat among us, taking up his proper
-word in the conversation, assuming no mask, showing no concern, it was
-with the utmost difficulty that one placed him as a man with a dark
-past, with a damnable blot on his escutcheon.  So unconscious was his
-poise that one often doubted the evidence of memory, and found oneself
-going back over the record, only to fetch up point-blank against the
-incontestable fact that he had stolen his ship and betrayed his
-profession.  By Jove, it seemed fantastic!  Here he was, to all intents
-and purposes a gentleman; a likeable fellow, too, in many ways.  He
-talked well, was positive without being arbitrary, usually had a fair
-and generous word for the issue under discussion, never indulged in
-criticism; and above all, damn him, he sustained a reputation for expert
-mastery over this profession to which he'd dealt such a foul blow.
-
-"'It is a triumph of character!' Lee Fu used to repeat, as we compared
-notes on the case from time to time.  'I think he has not been guilty of
-a single minor error.  His correctness is nothing short of diabolical.
-It presages disaster, like too much fair weather in the typhoon season.
-Wait and watch; mark my word, Captain, when the major error comes it
-will be a great tragedy'
-
-"'Must there be a major error?' I asked, falling into the mood of Lee
-Fu's exaggerated concern  'He's carried it off so far with the greatest
-ease'
-
-"'Yes, with the greatest ease' said Lee Fu thoughtfully  'Yet I begin to
-wonder whether he has been properly put to the test.  See how the world
-protects him!  Sometimes I am appalled. It is as if we wrapped the doers
-of evil in cotton wool, so that not even rudeness might disturb them.
-He has merely maintained a perfect silence, and the world has done the
-rest.  It has seemed more anxious to forget his crime than he to have it
-forgotten.  So he lives with impunity, as it were.  But he is not
-invulnerable.  Life will challenge him yet ... it must be ... life,
-which is truth, and not the world.  Can a man escape the anger and
-justice of the gods?  That is why I concern myself with him--to know his
-final destiny'
-
-"'You admit, then, that he's not the incarnate criminal you once thought
-him' I chaffed, unable to take the matter so deeply to heart  'He may be
-only a stupid fool with a wooden face and naturally good manners....'
-
-"'Not stupid' Lee Fu interrupted  'Yet, on the other hand, not
-exceptional, not superior to life.  Such faultless power of will is in
-itself no mean part of ability.  He is, as you might say,
-self-centred--most accurately self-centred.  But the challenge of the
-gods displaces the centre of all.  He will be like a top that is done
-spinning. A little breath may topple him at last.  Wait and see....
-But, for the present, it is evident that were is nothing more to be
-learned.  The mask is inscrutable'
-
-"Thinking the case over at sea, I often laughed to myself over Lee Fu's
-intensity. Voyage followed voyage; at one time when I had just come in
-from Bankok and was on my way from the Jetty to Lee Fu's office, I
-passed Captain Wilbur on the opposite side of Queen's Road.  He waved a
-hand to me as he turned the corner: at once it flashed across my mind
-that I hadn't observed the _Speedwell_ in the roadstead as I came in.
-When I had finished my business with Lee Fu, I asked him for an
-explanation of Wilbur's presence in Hong Kong without his vessel.
-
-"'You are mistaken, Captain--it has little significance' he answered
-with a quizzical smile 'So, after all, you pay a little attention?  The
-fact is, the successful Captain Wilbur has retired from active service
-on the sea.  He is now a ship owner, nothing more, and has favoured Hong
-Kong above all other ports as the seat of his retirement.  He resides in
-a fine house on Graham Terrace, and has three chairmen in white livery
-edged with crimson....  Captain Nichols, you should steal a ship'
-
-"'Who has gone in the _Speedwell_?' I inquired
-
-"'An old friend of ours, one Captain Turner' said Lee Fu slowly,
-glancing in my direction.
-
-"'Not Will Turner?'
-
-"'The same'
-
-"I pursed up my mouth in a silent whistle. Will Turner in the
-_Speedwell_!  Poor fellow, he must have lost another of his ill-starred
-vessels. Hard luck seemed to pursue him.  One ship would be sold from
-under his command; several he had lost in deep water, by fire, storm or
-old age; another had sprung a leak in the Java Sea, to be condemned a
-little later when he had worked her into Batavia.  A capable sailor and
-an honest man; yet life had afforded him nothing but a succession of
-hard blows and heavy falls.  Death and sorrow, too; he had buried a wife
-and child, swept off by cholera, in the Bay of Bengal.  A dozen years
-before, Turner and I had landed together in the China Sea, and were
-thrown much in each other's company; I knew his heart, his history, some
-of his secrets, and liked him tremendously for the man he was.
-
-"Watching Lee Fu in silence, I thought again of the relationship between
-Will Turner and this extraordinary Chinaman.  I won't go into that story
-now, but there were overwhelming reasons why these two should think well
-of each other; why Lee Fu should respect and honour Captain Turner, and
-why Turner should consider Lee Fu his best friend.  It had come about as
-the result of an incident of Turner's early days in the East; an
-incident of a ship, a rascal and a doctored charter-party, that might
-have turned into an ugly business save for the conduct and perspicacity
-of the two chief victims.  It had thrown them violently together; ever
-since, they had kept the bond close and hidden, as became men of
-reserve.  Probably I was the only man in the world who knew how strong
-it was.
-
-"And now Turner had taken Wilbur's ship. Strange how this new
-development seemed to impinge on Lee Fu's fancy, how it brought the
-Wilbur case nearer home.  The next moment, of course, the impression had
-passed; and I saw that, instead of marking another stroke of ill-luck
-for Turner, it might spell the beginning of good fortune.
-
-"'What happened to the old _Altair_?' I asked. Turner had commanded a
-trading packet of that name three months before.
-
-"'She was bought by certain parties for a store-ship, and now lies
-moored on Kowloon-side' answered Lee Fu  'I was about to make a proposal
-to Captain Turner, when this plan came forward' he went on, as if
-excusing himself  'I did not know of it until he had actually accepted.
-I said everything in my power to dissuade him...'
-
-"'What's the trouble?  Didn't Wilbur do the right thing by him?' I
-asked.
-
-"'Captain, you are perverse.  The business arrangement is immaterial.
-It is unthinkable that our friend should command a ship for such a man.
-The jealous gods have not yet shown their hand'
-
-"'Nonsense, Lee Fu!' I exclaimed, finding myself irritated at the
-out-cropping of the old conceit  'Since the thing is done, hadn't we
-better try to be practical in our attitude?'
-
-"'Exactly' said Lee Fu  'Let us be practical.... Captain Nichols, is it
-impossible for the Caucasian to reason from cause to effect?  There
-seems to be no logic in your design--which explains many curious facts
-of history.  I have merely insisted, in our consideration of this case,
-that a man who would do one thing would do another, and that sooner or
-later life would inevitably present him with another thing to do'
-
-"'But I've known too many men who escaped what you call destiny' I
-argued peevishly.
-
-"'Have you?' inquired Lee Fu.
-
-"He said no more, and we went out to tiffin"
-
-
-
-
-                                  *IV*
-
-
-"That year I plunged into the Malay Archipelago for an extended cruise,
-was gone seven months among the islands, and wasted another month coming
-up the China Sea in order to dodge the tail-end of the typhoon season.
-But luck favoured me, of course, since I wasn't in a hurry; and so it
-happened that for the last three hundred miles across from Luzon I raced
-with a typhoon after all, beating it to an anchorage in Hong Kong by a
-margin of twelve hours.  It was an exceptionally late storm; and the
-late ones, you know, are the least dependable in their actions.  Typhoon
-signals were flying from the Peak as I came in; before the _Omega's_
-sails were furled the sky to the eastward had lowered and darkened like
-a shutter, and the wind had begun to whip in vicious gusts across the
-harbour.
-
-"I went ashore at once, for I carried important papers from Lee Fu's
-chief agent in the islands. When I reached his outer office, I found it
-full of gathering gloom, although it was still early afternoon.  Sing
-Toy immediately took in my name. In a moment I was ushered into the
-familiar room where my friend sat beside a shaded lamp, facing a
-teakwood desk inlaid with ivory and invariably bare, save for a
-priceless Ming vase and an ornament of old green bronze.
-
-"'Back again, Lee Fu' said I, placing the island letters on the desk
-before him  'And just in time, it seems'  A rising gust outside whined
-along the street.
-
-"He paid no attention to my greeting or the letters.  'Sit down,
-Captain' said he  'I have bad news'
-
-"'Yes?' I queried, somewhat alarmed at the vagueness of the
-announcement.  So far as I was aware, no matter that we shared between
-us could result in 'bad news' said in such a tone.
-
-"Folding his hands across his stomach and slightly bowing his head, he
-gazed at me with a level upturned glance that without betraying
-expression carried by its very immobility a hint of deep emotion.
-
-"'It is as I told you' said he at last  'Now, perhaps, you will believe'
-
-"'For Heaven's sake, what are you talking about?' I demanded  'Tell me
-instantly what is wrong'
-
-"He nodded slowly.  'There is plenty of time--and I will tell.  It is
-often said that the season that brings a late typhoon, as now, is also
-ushered in by an early typhoon.  So it was this season.  A very severe
-storm came down before its time, and almost without warning....  It was
-this storm into whose face our late friend Captain Turner took his ship,
-the _Speedwell_, sailing from Hong Kong for New York some four months
-ago'
-
-"'You don't mean that Turner has lost her?'
-
-"'I regret to inform you, yes.  Also, he has lost himself.  Three days
-after sailing, he met the typhoon outside, and was blown upon a lee
-shore two hundred miles along the China Coast. In this predicament, he
-cut away his masts and came to anchor.  But his ship would not float,
-and accordingly sank at her anchors....'
-
-"'Sank at her anchors!' I exclaimed  'How could that be?  A tight ship
-never did such a thing'
-
-"'Nevertheless, she sank there in the midst of the storm, and all on
-board perished. Afterwards, the news was reported from shore, and the
-hull of the _Speedwell_ was discovered in ten fathoms of water.  There
-has been talk of trying to save the ship; and Captain Wilbur himself,
-her owner, in a diver's suit, has inspected the wreck.  Surely, he
-should be well-fitted to save her again, if it were possible!  He says
-no, and it is reported that the insurance companies are in agreement
-with him.  That is, they have decided that he cannot turn the trick a
-second time' Lee Fu's voice dropped to a rasping tone  'The lives,
-likewise, cannot be saved'
-
-"I sat for some moments in silence, gazing at the green bronze dragon on
-the desk.  Turner gone?  A friend's death is shocking, even though it
-makes so little difference.  And between us, too, there had been a
-bond....  I was thinking of the personal loss, and had missed the
-significance of Lee Fu's phraseology.  I looked up at him blankly; found
-him still regarding me with up-turned eyes, his chin sunk lower on his
-breast.
-
-"'That is not all' said he suddenly.
-
-"I sat up as if under the impact of a blow. Across my mind raced
-thoughts of all that might happen to a man on that abandoned coast.
-'What more?' I asked.
-
-"'Listen, Captain, and pay close attention. I have investigated with
-great care, and am fully satisfied that no mistake has been made.  You
-must believe me....  Some weeks after the departure and loss of the
-_Speedwell_, word came to my ears that a man had a tale worth hearing.
-You know how information reaches me, and that my sources run through
-unexpected channels among my people.  This man was brought; he proved to
-be a common coolie, a lighter-man who had been employed in the loading
-of the _Speedwell_. Note how slight chance may lead to serious
-occasions.  This coolie had been gambling during the dinner hour, and
-had lost the small sum that he should have taken home as the product of
-several days' labour.  Like many others, he feared his wife, and
-particularly her mother, who was a shrew.  In a moment of desperation,
-as the lighter was preparing to leave the vessel for the night, he
-escaped from the others and secreted himself in the _Speedwell's_ lower
-hold, among the bales of merchandise. What he planned is hard to tell;
-it does not matter.
-
-"'This happened while yet the ship's lower hold was not quite filled'
-Lee Fu went on after a pause 'The coolie, as I said, secreted himself in
-the cargo, well forward, for he had entered by the fore hatch. There he
-remained many hours, sleeping, and when he awoke, quietness had
-descended on the deck above.  He was about to climb into the
-between-decks, the air below being heavy with the odours of the cargo,
-when he heard a sound on the ladder that led down from the upper deck.
-It was a sound of quiet steps, mingled with a faint metallic rattling.
-In a moment a foot descended on the floor of the between-decks, and a
-lantern was cautiously lighted.  The coolie retreated quickly to his
-former hiding place, from which post he was able to see all that went
-on'
-
-"Again Lee Fu paused, as if lingering in imagination over the scene.
-'It seems that this late and secret comer into the hold of the
-_Speedwell_ was none other than her owner, Captain Wilbur' he slowly
-resumed  'The coolie knew his face; a distant cousin had once been in
-the employment of the Wilbur household, and the man was already aware
-whose ship it was.  Most of the inner facts of life are disseminated
-through the gossip of servants, and are known to a wide circle.
-Furthermore, as the lighter had been preparing to depart that evening,
-this coolie had seen the owner come on board in his own sampan.
-Afterwards, through my inquiries among sampan-men and others, I learned
-that Captain Turner had spent that night on shore.  It was Captain
-Wilbur's custom, it seems, frequently to sleep on board his ship when
-she lay here in port; the starboard stateroom was kept in readiness for
-him. So he had done this night--and he had been alone in the cabin'
-
-"'What was he doing in the hold with a lantern?' I asked, unable to
-restrain my impatience.
-
-"'Exactly ... you shall hear.  I was obliged to make certain deductions
-from the story of the coolie, for he was not technically acquainted with
-the internal construction of a vessel.  Yet what he saw was perfectly
-obvious to the most ignorant eye....  Have you ever been in the lower
-hold of the _Speedwell_, Captain Nichols?'
-
-"'No, I haven't'
-
-"'But you recall the famous matter of her bow-ports, do you not?'
-
-"'Yes, indeed.  I was in Singapore when they were cut'
-
-"The incident came back to me at once, in full detail.  There had been a
-cargo of ironwood on the beach, destined for the repair of a temple
-somewhere up the Yang-tse-kiang; among it were seven magnificent sticks
-of timber, each over a hundred feet in length and forty inches square at
-the butt--these were for columns, I suppose.  It had been necessary to
-find a large ship to take this cargo from Singapore to Shanghai; the
-_Speedwell_ had finally accepted the charter.  In order to load the
-immense column-timbers, she had been obliged to cut bow-ports of
-extraordinary size; fifty inches in depth they were, and nearly seven
-feet in width, according to my recollection--the biggest bow-ports on
-record.
-
-"'It has been my privilege' Lee Fu went on 'to examine the fore-peak of
-the _Speedwell_ when these ports were in and her hold was empty.  I had
-once chartered the ship, and felt alarmed for her safety until I had
-seen the interior fastenings of those great windows which, when she was
-loaded, looked out into the deep sea.  But my alarm was groundless.
-There was a most ingenious device for strengthening the bows where they
-had been weakened by the cutting of the ports.  Four or five timbers had
-been severed; but these had been reproduced on the port itself, and the
-whole was fashioned like a massive door.  It lifted upward on immense
-wrought iron hinges, a hinge to every timber; when it was lowered into
-its place, gigantic bars of iron, fitted into brackets on the adjoining
-timbers, stretched across its inner face to hold it against the impact
-of the waves.  At the bottom there were additional fastenings.  Thus the
-port, when tightly caulked from without, became an integral part of the
-hull; I was told, and could believe it, that there had never been a
-trace of leakage from her bows.  Most remarkable of all, I was told that
-when it became necessary to lift these ports for use, the task could
-easily be accomplished by two or three men and a stout watch-tackle....
-This, also, I am prepared to believe'
-
-"There seemed to be a general drift to Lee Fu's rambling narrative, but
-I hadn't yet caught sight of a logical denouement.  'To resume the story
-of the coolie' he continued with exasperating deliberation  'This, in
-plain language, is what he saw.  Our friend, Captain Wilbur, descended
-into the lower hold, and worked his way forward to the fore-peak, where
-there was little cargo.  There he laboured with great effort for several
-hours; you will recall that he is a vigorous man.  He had equipped
-himself with a short crowbar, and carried a light tackle wrapped about
-his body beneath the coat.  The tackle he loosened and hung to a hook
-above the middle of the port; I take it that he had brought this gear
-merely for the purpose of lowering easily the iron cross bars, so that
-they would make no noise.  Had one fallen...'
-
-"'Good God, Lee Fu, what are you trying to tell me?'
-
-"'Merely occurrences.  Many quite impossible things, Captain,
-nevertheless get themselves done in the dark, in secret places, out of
-sight and mind....  So, with the short crowbar he pried loose little by
-little the iron braces to the port, slinging them in his tackle and
-dropping them softly one by one into the ship's bottom.  It was a heavy
-task; the coolie said that sweat poured from the big man like rain.  Yet
-he was bent on accomplishment, and persevered until he had done the job.
-Later he removed all the additional port fastenings; last of all he
-covered the cross-bars with dunnage, and rolled against the bow several
-bulky bales of matting to conceal the crime.... Captain, when the
-_Speedwell_ sailed from Hong Kong on her last voyage in command of our
-honoured friend one of her great bowports below the water hung on its
-hinges without internal fastenings, held in place only by the tightness
-of the caulking.  The first heavy sea...'
-
-"'Can it be possible?' said I through clenched teeth.
-
-"'Oh, yes, so easily.  It happened, and has become a part of life.  As I
-told you, I have investigated with scrupulous care; my men dare not tell
-me lies'
-
-"I was still trying to get my bearings, to grasp a clue.  'But why
-should he do it, Lee Fu?  Had he anything against Turner?'
-
-"'Not at all.  You do not seem to understand. He was tired of the
-vessel, and freights were becoming very poor.  He wanted the insurance.
-He now assures himself that he had no thought of disaster; one could
-hardly foresee an early typhoon.  He had it in mind for the ship to sink
-discreetly, in pleasant weather, so that all hands might escape....  Yet
-he was willing to run the risk of wholesale murder.  Remember how he
-sweated at the task, there in the fetid air of the lower hold.  It was
-absentee murder, if you will; he did not contemplate, he was not forced
-to contemplate, the possible results of his act on the lives of
-others....  What do you think now, Captain, of a man who will betray his
-profession?'
-
-"I got up abruptly and began to pace the floor. The damnable affair had
-made me sick at heart, and a little sick at the stomach.  What to
-think?--what to believe?  It seemed incredible, fantastic; there must be
-some mistake....  While I was pacing, Lee Fu changed his position.  He
-faced the desk, stretched out an arm, and put his palm flat down on the
-polished surface.
-
-"'Thus the gods have struck' said he, in that changeless voice that
-seemed an echo of the ages 'There is blood at last,
-Captain--twenty-seven lives, and among them one dear to us--enough to
-convince even one of your race that a crime has been committed.  But my
-analysis was seriously in error.  The criminal, it seems, is destined
-not to suffer.  He continues to go about carried by three men in white
-and crimson livery, his belly full of food and wine.  Others have paid
-the price.  Instead of toppling, his life spins on with renewed
-momentum.  My query has been answered; he has escaped the gods'
-
-"'Can't you rip the case open, jostle his security?  Isn't there some
-way...?'
-
-"'No way' said Lee Fu with a shake of the head  'You forget the fine
-principle of extraterritoriality, which you have so kindly imposed on us
-by force of arms.  Captain Wilbur is not subject to Chinese justice;
-your own courts have exclusive jurisdiction over him, his kind, and all
-their works.  No, Captain, he is amply protected. What could I
-accomplish in your courts with this fanciful accusation, and for
-witnesses a coolie and a sampan-man?'
-
-"I continued to pace the floor, thinking dark thoughts.  There was a
-way, of course ... between man and man; but such things aren't done any
-longer by civilized people.  We're supposed not to go about with
-firearms, privately meting out justice.  We are domesticated. Whatever
-the thoughts I might have harboured, in the first anger of the
-realization of wrong, I knew very well that I shouldn't act on them.
-Lee Fu was right, there was nothing to be done; the man had made good
-his escape from the hand of destiny.
-
-"Pacing rapidly, as if pursued by a veritable phantom of crime, and
-oblivious of everything but the four walls of the room, I nearly floored
-the chief clerk, Sing Toy, as he pattered in with a message from the
-outer office.  He ducked, slipped behind the lamp, and began whispering
-in Lee Fu's ear.
-
-"'_Ah!_' exclaimed Lee Fu sharply.
-
-"I started, whirled around in my tracks.  His voice had lost the level,
-passive tone; it had taken on the timbre of action.  Suddenly, with a
-quick rustle of silken garments, he stood up behind the desk; the abrupt
-motion threw his shadow across the floor and up the opposite wall.  With
-a subtle thrill of anticipation, I felt the profound psychic change that
-had come over my friend.  The very air of the room had quickened before
-that single exclamation, as if a cold breeze had blown through....  A
-breeze, indeed, was at that moment trying hard to find an entrance; the
-absolute silence of the room brought out in sharp relief the tumult
-outside, the hoarse voice of the rising gale.  We stood as if listening.
-I looked at Lee Fu, caught his eye.  It was charged with energy and
-purpose, with something like relief--like the eye of a man who has made
-up his mind after a long period of bewilderment, who begins to
-understand....
-
-"'Send him in, alone' said he in Chinese to Sing Toy, now at the outer
-door.
-
-"'Who is it?' I asked hoarsely.
-
-"'The man we have been speaking of'
-
-"'Wilbur?  What the devil...?'
-
-"'He merely dropped in as he was passing, to make a call' said Lee Fu,
-speaking rapidly  'So he thinks--but I think otherwise'  Leaning forward
-across the desk, he fixed me with an extended arm that trembled slightly
-before it found its aim.  'Keep silence' he commanded 'Beware of word or
-glance.  This chanced by predestination.  We are on the threshold of the
-gods'
-
-
-
-
-                                  *V*
-
-
-Lee Fu remained standing as Captain Wilbur entered the room.  His
-hurried admonition still rang in my ears  'Keep silence--beware of word
-or glance!'  But I couldn't have spoken; had I opened my mouth just
-then, it would have been only to emit a snarl of anger.  To beware of
-glances was a different matter.  The task might be easy enough for Lee
-Fu, with that perfect self-control of his that extended to the last
-nerve of his eyelids and the last muscle of his fingertips; but for my
-part I was spiritually incapable, as it were, of keeping rage and
-abomination out of my eyes.  I stood as if rooted to the floor, gazing
-point-blank at Wilbur with a stare that must have made him wonder about
-my sanity. For, of course, he hadn't the slightest suspicion that we
-knew what we knew.
-
-"'Good afternoon, Captain Wilbur' said Lee Fu blandly  'Do you seek
-refuge from the storm? ... I think you are acquainted with Captain
-Nichols, of the barque _Omega_.  He arrived this morning from the
-Celebes'
-
-"'Oh, how do you do, Nichols' said Wilbur, advancing down the room
-'I've missed you around town for a good while, it seems to me. So you've
-been off on one of your famous exploring trips?  Then you'll have a lot
-to tell us.  I suppose you had the usual assortment of romantic and
-tragic adventures?'
-
-"I drew back behind the desk, to escape shaking his hand.  'No' I
-answered 'nothing like the adventure that awaited me here'
-
-"He settled himself in a chair, directly in range of the light; smiled,
-and lifted his eyebrows.  'So...? Well, I can believe you.  This office,
-you know, is the heart of all adventure.  The most romantic room in the
-East--presided over by the very genius of romance'  He bowed toward Lee
-Fu, and touched a match to a long Manila.  'Genius, or demon, which is
-it, now?' he chuckled, his eyes twinkling from Lee Fu to me.
-
-"'You honour me, Captain' interposed Lee Fu quickly, cutting me off from
-the necessity of speaking.  'If, indeed, you do not flatter.  I merely
-observe and live.  It is life that may be called the heart of all
-adventure--life, with its amazing secrets that one by one transpire into
-the day, and with its enormous burden of evil that weighs us down like
-slaves'
-
-"Wilbur laughed.  'Yes, that's it, no doubt. But there's some good, too,
-Lee Fu--plenty of good.  Don't be a pessimist.  Yet you're right enough
-in a way; the evil always does manage to be more romantic'
-
-"'Much more romantic' observed Lee Fu 'And the secrets are more romantic
-still. Consider, for instance, the case of a man with a dark secret that
-by chance has become known, though he is not aware of the fact.  How
-infinitely romantic!  He feels secure; yet inevitably it will be
-disclosed.  When, and how?  Such a case would be well worth watching ...
-as the great poet had in mind when he wrote "Murder will out"'
-
-"The winged words made no impression on their mark.  Wilbur met Lee Fu's
-glance frankly, innocently, with interest and even with a trace of
-amusement at the other's flight of fancy.  The full light of the lamp
-illuminated his features, the least fleeting expression couldn't have
-escaped us.  By Jove, he was superb; the damned rascal hadn't a nerve in
-his body.  To be sure, he still had no suspicion, and attributed Lee
-Fu's shaft to a mere chance; yet this very factor of safety lent
-additional point to the finish of his dissimulation.  He might at least
-have indulged himself in a start, a glance, a knitting of the eyebrows;
-his conscience, or his memory if he hadn't a conscience, might have
-received a faint surprise.  But his watchfulness must have been
-unfailing, automatic.  Or was it that a reminder of his appalling crime
-woke no echo at all in his breast?
-
-"I examined him closely.  Above a trimmed brown beard his cheeks showed
-the ruddy colour of health and energy; his eyes were steady, his mouth
-was strong and clean, a head of fine grey hair surmounted a high
-forehead; the whole aspect of his countenance was pleasing and
-dignified.  He had good hands, broad yet closely knit, and ruddy with
-the same glow of health that rose in his face.  He was dressed neatly in
-a plain blue serge suit, with square-toed russet shoes encasing small
-feet, a dark bow-tie at his throat, and a narrow gold watch chain strung
-across his vest.  Sitting at ease, with an arm thrown over the
-chair-back and one ankle resting on the other knee, he presented a fine
-figure of a man, a figure that might have been that of a prosperous and
-benevolent merchant, a man who had passed through the world with merit
-and integrity, and now was enjoying his just reward.
-
-"He gave a hearty laugh.  'For the Lord's sake, you fellows, come on out
-of the gloom!' he cried  'A pretty state of mind you seem to have worked
-yourselves into, hobnobbing here behind closed doors.  I drop in for a
-chat, and find a couple of blue devils up to their ears in the sins of
-humanity.  Nichols, over there, is just as bad as the other; he's
-scarcely opened his mouth since I came in.  What's the matter? ... You
-have to fight these moods, you know' he quizzed  'It doesn't do to let
-them get the upper hand'
-
-"'It is the mood of the approaching storm' said Lee Fu quietly  'We have
-been speaking of typhoons, and of the fate that they sometimes bring to
-men'
-
-"A fiercer squall than the last shook the building; it passed in a
-moment, ceasing suddenly, as if dropping us somewhere in mid-air.
-Wilbur was the first to speak after the uproar.
-
-"'Yes, it's going to be another terror, I'm afraid.  A bad night to be
-on the water, gentlemen.  I shouldn't care to be threshing around
-outside, now, as poor Turner was such a short time ago'
-
-"I could have struck him across the mouth for the shocking callousness
-of the words.  A bad night outside!  He dared to speak of it; he,
-sitting there so comfortably, so correctly, alive and well, glad to be
-safe in port and sorry for those afloat--the same remorseless devil who
-had sent Turner to his doom.
-
-"Lee Fu's voice fell like oil on a breaking sea. 'All signs point to
-another severe typhoon.  But, as I was telling Captain Nichols, these
-late storms are often irregular--like the early ones....  It happened,
-Captain Wilbur, that the loss of the _Speedwell_ was the subject we were
-discussing when you came in'
-
-"'Too bad--too bad' said Wilbur soberly, as if overcome by thoughts of
-the disaster  'You were away, Nichols, weren't you?  Of course!--then
-you've just heard of it.  It was a bad week here, I can tell you, after
-the news came in.  I shall never forget it....  Well, we take our
-chances....'
-
-"'Some of us do, and some of us don't' I snapped.
-
-"'That's just the way I felt about it, at the time' said he simply  'I
-didn't feel right, to have both feet on the ground.  Seemed as if there
-must have been something we could have done, something we had neglected.
-It came home hard to me'
-
-"My jaw fairly dropped as I listened to the man.  Something he had
-neglected? ... Was it possible that he liked to talk about the affair?
-He didn't seem anxious to turn the conversation.
-
-"'Captain Nichols and I were wondering' observed Lee Fu 'why it was that
-the _Speedwell_ did not remain afloat, after she had cast her anchors.
-Neither of us can recall another incident of the kind.  What is your
-opinion, Captain Wilbur; you have examined the hull, as it lies on the
-bottom'
-
-"'It isn't a matter of opinion' Wilbur answered 'Haven't I told you?--I
-thought I'd seen you since the inspection.  I put on a diver's suit, you
-know, Nichols, and went down....  Why, the simple explanation is, her
-starboard bow-port in the lower hold is stove in.  It must have happened
-after she came to anchor.  She lay there just scooping up water at every
-plunge--filled and sank as she lay.  I've always been afraid of those
-big bow-ports; the moment I heard of the peculiar circumstances of the
-disaster, I knew in my heart what had happened'
-
-"'Did you?' inquired Lee Fu, with a slight hardening of the voice
-'Strange--but so did I'
-
-"Wilbur gazed at him questioningly, knitting his brows.  'Oh, yes, I
-remember.  I was wondering how you happened to think of her bow-ports.
-But you told me that you had examined them....'
-
-"'Yes, I examined them....  Captain Wilbur, have you collected your
-insurance money?'  The question came with an abruptness that marked a
-change of tactics; to me, who knew Lee Fu so well, it obviously marked
-the first turning point in some as yet impenetrable plan.
-
-"Wilbur frowned and glanced up sharply, very properly offended.  The
-next moment he had decided to pass it off as an instance of alien
-manners.  'As a matter of fact, I've just cleaned up to-day' he replied
-brusquely  'Had my final settlement with Lloyds this morning--and did a
-silly thing, as a fellow will sometimes.  You know, they had a package
-of large denomination bank notes in the office, crisp, wonderful looking
-fellows; I took a sudden fancy for them, and in a moment of childishness
-asked to have my money in that form.  They chaffed me a good deal, but I
-stuck to it.  You'd hardly believe, would you, that a fellow would be
-such a fool?  I can prove it to you, though; I've got those bills in my
-pocket now.  By Jove, that reminds me--what time is it getting to be?  I
-must leave them at the bank before it closes'
-
-"'What is the total amount of the bank notes that you have in your
-possession?' asked Lee Fu in a level tone that carried its own insult.
-
-Wilbur plainly showed his astonishment now. 'The total amount? ... Well,
-if you want all the details, I have about forty thousand dollars in my
-pocket.  I'm not aware, however, that it's any concern of yours....'
-
-"Lee Fu shot at me a stare full of meaning; it might have been a look of
-caution, or a glance of triumph.  I was expected to understand
-something; but for the life of me I couldn't catch the drift of the
-situation.  Confused by the terrific struggle to keep my mouth shut, I
-only perceived that a crisis was impending.
-
-"'As I was saying, I once examined the bow-ports of the _Speedwell_' Lee
-Fu calmly resumed. 'At that time, I satisfied myself as to their
-construction; unlike you, Captain Wilbur, I could not be afraid of them.
-When properly fastened, they were impregnable to any danger of the
-sea.... And I remember, Captain, that it occurred to me, as I examined
-their fastenings, how easily these ports could be loosened from within,
-by anyone who desired to sink the vessel.  The iron cross-bars could be
-lifted from their brackets by a single strong man; with a small tackle
-they could be dropped without noise into the bottom. No one need know of
-it; and, lo, the ship would sail to meet her destiny riding on the
-waves.  Has the thought ever occurred to you, Captain Wilbur?'
-
-"Wilbur's air of mingled repugnance and perplexity was innocence itself.
-'I can't say that it has' he answered shortly  'Your imagination is a
-little morbid, Lee Fu--I won't say worse.  Who would want to sink the
-_Speedwell_, I'd like to know?'
-
-"'Who, indeed?' observed Lee Fu, staring at Wilbur with a steady, biting
-gaze.  As he stared, he reached out slowly with his right hand and
-opened the top drawer of the desk.  Suddenly he stood up.  The hand held
-a revolver, which pointed with an unwavering aim at Wilbur's breast.
-
-"'If you move from your chair, Captain, I will shoot you dead, and your
-end will never be known' said he rapidly, throwing a cold determination
-into his voice  'It is time we came to an understanding, for the day
-wanes'
-
-"Wilbur uncrossed his legs, leaned forward, and looked at Lee Fu
-narrowly.  'What's the joke?' he demanded.
-
-"'A joke that will be clear as time goes on--like one you played with
-bow-ports on my friend....  Captain, we are about to go on a journey.
-Will you join us, Captain Nichols, or will you remain on shore?'
-
-"The question was perfunctory; whatever was in the wind, Lee Fu knew
-that my decision rested in his hands.  I stood up--for until now I'd
-been chained to my chair by the amazing turn of the moment.
-
-"'Bow-ports?...' Wilbur was saying 'Put that gun down.  What in hell do
-you mean?'  He started to rise.
-
-'Sit down!' commanded Lee Fu  'I mean that I will shoot.  This is not
-play'  Their eyes met in a sharp struggle, which Lee Fu won. Wilbur sank
-back, angry and confused.
-
-"'Are you crazy, Lee Fu?' he growled 'What is it--do you want to rob me?
-What's the meaning of this nonsense, Nichols?  Have both of you gone
-mad?'
-
-"'No, Captain' interposed Lee Fu  'But we have found a man who wanted to
-sink the _Speedwell_,, and we wish to observe him under certain
-conditions....  Is it possible that you do not as yet comprehend that I
-share your secret?  You were seen, Captain, that black and cruel night
-in the forepeak; and those details, also, are known to me.  It is
-needless to dissemble longer'
-
-"'That night in the forepeak? ... For God's sake, Lee Fu, what are you
-talking about? Nichols, this is too ridiculous!  Tell me the answer, and
-get over with it'
-
-"'Ah!' exclaimed Lee Fu with something like satisfaction  'You are
-worthy of the occasion, Captain.  It will be most interesting'
-
-"He slapped his palm sharply on the desk; Sing Toy appeared at the door
-as if by a mechanical arrangement.  'Bring oilskin coats and hats for
-three' Lee Fu commanded  'Also send in haste to my cruising sampan, with
-orders to prepare for an immediate journey.  Have water and food
-prepared for a week.  We come within the half-hour, and will sail
-without delay'
-
-"'Master!' protested Sing Toy breathlessly--their words, in rapid
-Chinese, were wholly unintelligible to Wilbur.  'Master, the typhoon!'
-He glanced at the revolver in Lee Fu's hand, then raised his eyes to the
-wall that smothered the tumult of the gale.
-
-"'I know, fool' answered Lee Fu  'I am neither deaf nor blind.  But it
-is necessary to sail.  Go, quickly, do as I say'
-
-"He sat down, resting the revolver on the corner of the desk, and
-resumed his former tone of bland conversation  'I am sorry, gentlemen,
-that the rain has already come; but there is water also below, as
-Captain Wilbur should be well aware.  Yes, it was destined from the
-first that this should be a wet journey.  Yet it will be possible still
-to breathe; not quite so bad as solid water all around, where after a
-grim struggle one lies at rest, neither caring nor remembering....
-Captain Wilbur, attend to what I say.  We go from this office to my
-sampan, which lies moored at the bulkhead, not far away.  During the
-walk, you will precede us.  I shall hold my revolver in my hand--and I
-am an excellent shot.  If you attempt to escape, or to communicate with
-any passerby--if you call for help, or even disclose by your manner the
-strangeness of the occasion--you will immediately be dead.  Bear this in
-mind.  And do not think that I should fear the consequences; we shall
-pass through Chinese streets, where action of mine would not be
-questioned'
-
-"'Damn you!' Wilbur burst out  'What crazy nonsense are you up to?
-Nichols, will you permit this?  Where are you taking me?'
-
-"'Never mind' replied Lee Fu  'As for Captain Nichols, he knows, if
-anything, less than you do about it.  He, also, is at my mercy.... Ah,
-here are the raincoats.  Put one on, Captain Wilbur; you will need it
-sorely before your return.  Now we must hurry.  I would be clear of the
-harbour before darkness falls entirely'
-
-
-
-
-                                  *VI*
-
-
-"As we issued from the doorway, the gale caught us with a swirl that
-carried us round the corner and down a side street before we could get
-our breath.  'To the right' Lee Fu shouted. Wilbur, lurching ahead,
-obeyed sullenly.  We came about and made for the water front through the
-fringe of the Chinese quarter--the most remarkable trio, perhaps, that
-had ever threaded those familiar thoroughfares.  Few people were abroad;
-a Chinaman now and then scurried to cover in our path, and more
-infrequently we caught sight of a stray European in the distance, called
-out somewhere by the exigencies of business.
-
-"Overhead, the sky had settled low on the slope of the Peak, cutting off
-the heights from view; it presented the aspect of a heavy leaden roof,
-spreading above the mainland to northward, fitting tight along the
-horizon, and seeming to compress the whole atmosphere.  Torrents of rain
-fell from the frequent squalls; the running water in the streets spurted
-about our ankles. We floundered on, enveloped in a sort of grey gloom
-like that of an eclipse.  When we reached the harbour, the face of the
-bay had undergone a sinister change; its yellow-green waters were lashed
-into sickly foam, and shrouded by an unnatural gleaming darkness.  A
-distant moaning sound ran through the upper air, vague yet distinctly
-audible.  It was evident to the practised eye that the southern margin
-of the typhoon wasn't far away; with the wind in this quarter, its
-centre was headed straight in our direction.
-
-"As we staggered along the quay, my thoughts worked rapidly.  The wind
-and the open had cleared my mind as to the swift events of the last
-half-hour; I began to perceive the plan, now, and immediately recognized
-the dangerous nature of the undertaking on which we'd embarked.  It was
-to be a game of bluff, in which we should have to risk our lives if the
-other held his ground.  I'd seen Lee Fu in action; I knew that he would
-hesitate at nothing, since his face was committed to the enterprise.
-
-"I edged toward him.  'Will you go on the water?' I asked close to his
-ear.
-
-"He nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on Wilbur.
-
-"'But it can't be done' I told him  'A boat won't live....'
-
-"'There is always a definite alternative' he replied.
-
-"'Yes, that she sinks'
-
-"'Exactly'
-
-"I drew away, reviewing the details once more....  All at once, in a
-flash of enlightenment, the greatness of the occasion came to me. By
-Jove!  Lee Fu had taken the matter into his own hands, he had stepped in
-where the gods were impotent.  But not rudely, as men are apt to do in
-sudden passion; not with blood and vengeance, an eye for an eye, and a
-tooth for a tooth.  No, he had observed the divine proprieties; had
-recognized that if he presumed to act for the gods, he must throw his
-own life as well into the balance.  He himself must run every risk.  It
-was for them, after all, to make the final choice. His part was to force
-action on the gods.
-
-"I gazed at him in wonder--and with more than a flurry of alarm.  He
-advanced stiffly against the storm, walking like an automaton; his
-expression was absolutely inscrutable.  Beneath the close-pulled rim of
-a black sou'wester his smooth, oval countenance looked ridiculously
-vacant, like the face of a placid moon.  He was the only calm object in
-earth, sea, or sky; against the lashing rain, the dancing boats, the
-scudding clouds, the hurried shadows of appearing and vanishing men, he
-stood out solidly, a different essence, the embodiment of mind and will.
-Only these could have been superior to the grosser temptation; only
-these could have met the test, and risen to the awful stratagem.
-
-"And how was it with Wilbur, off there in the lead?  He, too, walked
-stiffly, wrapped in thought.  Once he turned round, as if to come back
-and speak to us; then whirled with a violent movement of decision and
-plunged on into the rain.  He must have known, by now, what it was all
-about, if not what to expect.  He must have known that his crime had
-been discovered.  Yet he had made no break; in no particular had he
-given himself away.  What had he been about to say?--what had he
-decided?  To hold on, of course, maintain the bluff--for he could not
-believe that we knew all.  Would he confess, when he faced death on the
-water?  How long would he hold on?
-
-"Observing his broad back, his commanding figure, that looked thoroughly
-at home in its oilskin coat and leaning against the storm, it came to me
-that he would put up a desperate defence before he succumbed.  He, too,
-was a strong man, and no part of a coward; he, too, in a different way,
-was a superior being, the embodiment of mind and will.  I didn't
-under-estimate him.  Indeed, he was worthy of the occasion and of his
-adversary. It was to be a battle of the giants, with typhoon for
-background and accompaniment.
-
-"Then, for an instant, my own spirit went slump with the realization of
-what might lie ahead, and a great weakness overcame me.  I edged again
-toward Lee Fu.
-
-"'My God, suppose the man is really innocent?' I cried  'He hasn't
-turned a hair....'
-
-"Lee Fu gave me a flash of the moon-face beneath the sou'wester.
-
-"'Have no fear, my friend' said he  'I am completely satisfied, in
-regions where the soul dwells.  It has begun very well'
-
-
-
-
-                                 *VII*
-
-
-"When we reached the sampan, lying under a weather shore beneath the
-bulkhead, we found a scene of consternation.  Lee Fu's orders had
-arrived and been executed; yet the men couldn't believe that he actually
-meant to sail.  Gathered in a panic-stricken group on the fore deck of
-the sampan, they chattered like a flock of magpies; their gleaming wet
-bodies writhed in wild gestures under the half-light.  As they caught
-sight of us, they swarmed across the bulkhead and fell at Lee Fu's feet,
-begging for mercy.
-
-"'Up dogs!' he cried  'There is no danger. I shall steer; and it is
-necessary that we go.  If any would remain, let them depart now, with no
-tale to tell.  Let those who stay prepare at once for sea'
-
-"Not a man made a move to go; the presence and voice of the master had
-reassured them. Without another word, they rose and filed on board.
-
-"I found Wilbur beside me.  'What is this madness, Nichols?' he demanded
-for the last time  'Are you fool enough to go on the water in that
-craft?  What has that lunatic been saying to the men?--I don't
-understand their damned lingo'
-
-"'He told his crew to prepare for sea' I answered shortly  'If he goes,
-we all go.  He says there is no danger'
-
-"'Huh!  You're a bigger fool than I took you for'
-
-"A moment later we stood together on the quarter-deck of the cruising
-sampan.  Lee Fu took his station at the great tiller, that archaic
-steering arrangement worked by blocks and tackles which the Chinese
-cherish like the precepts of Confucius in the face of mechanical
-invention. The wind lulled for a moment, as the trough of a squall
-passed over.  Lee Fu gave a few sharp orders.  Moorings were cast off, a
-pinch of sail was lifted forward.  The big craft found her freedom with
-a lurch and a stagger; then pulled herself together and left the land
-with a steady rush, skimming dead before the wind across the smooth
-weather reach of the harbour, and quickly losing herself in the murk and
-spray that hung off Gowloon Point.  If we were sighted from the fleet,
-which is extremely doubtful, we were put down as a junk that had broken
-adrift. Somehow Lee Fu managed to avoid the ships at anchor off Wanchi.
-Straight down the length of the bay he struck; in an incredibly short
-time we had left the harbour behind, and were whirling through the
-narrow gut of Lymoon Pass before a terrific squall, bound for the open
-sea.
-
-"I watched Captain Wilbur.  He stood in a careless attitude at the rail
-in our race down the harbour, scanning the boat and the water with an
-air of confidence and unconcern.  A slight sneer curled his lip; he had
-made up his mind to see the nonsense through.  The sailor in him had
-quickly recognized that the craft would stand the weather, so long as
-she remained in quiet water. Probably he expected every minute that Lee
-Fu would change his tactics and put into some sheltered cove....  But
-when we shot through Lymoon Pass, I saw him turn and scrutinize the
-Chinaman closely.  Darkness was falling behind the murk, the real night
-now; ahead of us lay a widening reach among the islands, that opened
-abruptly on the main body of the China Sea. We were rapidly leaving the
-protection of Victoria Island.  Soon we should be unable to see our way.
-Ten miles outside a high sea was running.  And with every blast of wind
-that held in the same quarter, the centre of the typhoon was bearing
-down on us with unerring aim.
-
-"These facts were as patent to Wilbur as to any of us.  It was his
-knowledge, of course, that finally was his undoing; had he been less of
-a sailor, or had he been entirely ignorant of the sea, he could have
-resigned himself to the situation, on the assumption that those who were
-sailing the craft wouldn't put themselves in actual danger.  Perhaps Lee
-Fu had realized this when he'd chosen the sea as the medium of justice;
-perhaps he had glimpsed the profound and subtle truth that Wilbur
-couldn't properly be broken save in his native environment.  He knew the
-sea, he had trifled with it; then let him face the sea.
-
-"The time came, just before we lost the loom of the land, when Wilbur
-could stand it no longer; as a sailor, used to responsibility and
-authority, he had to speak his mind.  He knew that the situation was
-growing very dangerous....  For my part, I had become convinced by now
-that it was irretrievable; it began to look as if we'd burned our last
-bridge behind us.  I didn't pretend to understand; Lee Fu seemed
-reckless beyond measure, he had apparently given away his cards without
-trying to play them.  One thing was certain--if some way couldn't be
-found to hold up this mad race immediately, we should be forced in the
-next five minutes to run the gauntlet of the typhoon in open water.
-
-"Wilbur dropped aft beside Lee Fu, and made a funnel of his hands.
-
-"'You're running to your death!' he shouted. 'Do you realize what you're
-doing?  You've already lost Pootoy.  If you can't haul up and make the
-lee of the Lema Islands...'
-
-"'I intend to pass nowhere near them--and I know exactly what I am
-doing' answered Lee Fu, keeping his eyes on the yawing bow of the
-sampan.
-
-"'There's nothing to the eastward ... no more shelter..."
-
-"'Of that I am aware'
-
-"'Do you know the meaning of _that_?' Wilbur pointed wildly above the
-stern rail, into the face of the onrushing storm.
-
-"'I think we shall get the centre of the typhoon, Captain, by noon of
-tomorrow'
-
-"Wilbur made a move as if to grasp the tiller. 'Haul up, you fool!...'
-
-"A stray gleam in the gathering darkness caught the barrel of the
-revolver, as Lee Fu steered for a moment with one hand.
-
-"'Beware, Captain!  You are the fool; would you broach us to, and end it
-now?  One thing alone will send me to seek the last shelter; and for
-that thing I think you are not ready'
-
-"'What?'
-
-"'To say that you sank the _Speedwell_, as I have indicated'
-
-"Wilbur gathered his strength as if to strike; his face was distorted
-with passion.
-
-"'You lie, you yellow hound!'
-
-"'Exactly....  Captain, be careful--come no nearer!  Also, leave me now,
-and go away, for I have work to do.  If you value your life, you will
-keep silence, and stay a little forward.  Go, quickly!  Here I could
-shoot you with even greater impunity'"
-
-
-
-
-                                 *VIII*
-
-
-Nichols paused.  "It may be that some of you fellows have never seen Lee
-Fu's cruising sampan" he remarked  "In reality she is more of a junk
-than a sampan; a sizeable craft of over a hundred tons, the best product
-of the Chinese shipyard.  Lee Fu built her for trips along the coast,
-where conditions of wind and weather are likely to be severe; many of
-his own ideas, born of an expert knowledge of ships of every rig and
-nationality, entered into her construction. The result is a distinctly
-Chinese creation, a craft that in some unaccountable way seems to
-reflect his own personality, that responds to his touch and works
-mysteriously for him.  She's higher in the bows than an ordinary junk,
-and a trifle lower in the stern; a broad, shallow hull, requiring a
-centreboard on the wind.  She is completely decked over for heavy
-weather.  In charge of any one of us, perhaps, she would be fairly
-unmanageable; but in Lee Fu's hands, I can assure you, she's a sea-boat
-of remarkable attainments and a yacht of no insignificant speed.
-
-"I had seen him handle her under difficult conditions, but never in such
-a pass as this.  How he accomplished it was inconceivable to me. The
-last I saw of him that evening, he had called two men to help him at the
-tiller; so far, he had managed to keep the craft before the wind.... He
-continued to keep her before it throughout the night, running eastward
-in open water along the China coast.  That is to say, he must have kept
-her before it--because we came through the night, alive and still
-afloat.  But how, I cannot tell.
-
-"For hours I was alone with the elements, surrounded by pitchy blackness
-and the storm.  I clung to a stanchion, hardly changing my position
-during the night, drenched by rain and spray, seeing nothing, hearing no
-word of my companions.  The gale roared above us with the peculiar
-tearing sound that accompanies the body of a typhoon--a sound suggestive
-of unearthly anger and violence, as if elemental forces were ripping up
-the envelope of the universe--a sound that carries its own message of
-latent power, of savage impulse, of unloosed destruction.  The wind
-gained steadily in volume; it picked up the sea in steep ridges of solid
-water that flung us like a chip from crest to crest, or caught us, burst
-above us, and swallowed us whole, as if we had suddenly sunk down a deep
-well.  From these plunges the sampan would emerge after a long interval,
-like a fish coming up to blow.  It seemed impossible that she could be
-kept running; to come into the wind, however, would have been certain
-disaster.  Every moment I expected would be our last.  Yet, as time wore
-on, I felt, through the boat's frantic floundering, a touch of mastery.
-Lee Fu steered--she still was under his control.
-
-"So we came through, and saw the dawn.  A pale, watery light crept
-little by little across the east, disclosing a scene of terror beyond
-description. The face of the sea was livid with flying yellow foam; the
-torn sky hung closely over it like the fringe of a mighty waterfall.  In
-the midst of this churning cauldron our little craft seemed momentarily
-on the point of disappearing, about to be engulfed by the sheer wrath of
-the elements.  It was a scene to compel the eye, while the heart whined
-in fear for the return of darkness or the swift downfall of oblivion.
-
-"In a lull of the storm my glance encountered Wilbur; for a long while
-I'd forgotten him entirely.  He hung to the rail a little farther
-forward, gazing across the maelstrom with a fixed exhausted expression.
-His face was haggard; the strain of the night had marked him with a
-ruthless hand.  As I watched him, his eyes turned slowly in my
-direction; he gave me an anxious look, then crawled along the rail to a
-place by my side.
-
-"'Nichols, we're lost!' I heard him cry in my ear.  The voice was
-uneven, plaintive; it made me angry, and revived a few sparks of my own
-courage.
-
-"'What of it?' I cried harshly  'Turner was lost, too'
-
-"'You believe that?...'
-
-"I looked at him point-blank; his eyes suddenly shifted, he couldn't
-face me now.
-
-"'Why don't you own up, before it's too late?' I shouted at him.
-
-"Without answering he moved away hastily, like innocence offended.  But
-the strong man was gone, the air of perfect confidence had disappeared;
-he was shattered and spent, but not yet broken.  Pride is a more
-tenacious quality than courage; men with hearts of water, with their
-knees knocking together, will continue to function through self-esteem.
-Besides, what would have been the use now, as he saw it, to make
-confession?  Nothing, apparently, could save us; there was no shelter,
-no hope in sight....
-
-"Looking above his head, where the sky and the sea met in a blanket of
-flying spume, I caught sight for an instant of something that resembled
-the vague form of a headland.  Watching closely, I saw it
-again--unmistakeably the shadow of land, broad on the port bow....
-Land!  That meant that the wind had shifted to southward, that we were
-being blown against the shore.  And that, in turn, meant that the centre
-of the typhoon had passed inland, behind Hong Kong, and would issue into
-the China Sea somewhere down the coast.
-
-"I worked my way cautiously aft, where Lee Fu stood like a man of iron
-at the tiller, lashed to a heavy cross-rail that must have been
-constructed for such occasions.  He saw me coming, leaned slightly
-toward me.
-
-"'Land!' I shouted, pointing on the port bow.
-
-"He nodded vigorously, disclosing that he'd already seen it.  '...
-Recognize...'  The rest of his answer was blown away by the storm.
-
-"By pantomime, I called his attention to the shift of wind.  Again he
-nodded--then ducked his head in Wilbur's direction, shouting something
-that I couldn't quite follow.  '... Change our tactics ...' was what I
-understood him to say.
-
-"What did he mean by that?  My mind refused to function, save in
-channels of fantastic conjecture.  I'd gained the impression that he was
-disappointed at the present turn of affairs. Had he depended on the
-centre of the typhoon for his climax?  Good God, had he wanted it to
-catch us?  As matters stood, it was only by the extreme grace of
-providence that we remained alive.  Now, it seems, something had
-miscarried, we must change our tactics ... find some new horror to take
-the place of the one that had passed us by.
-
-"He beckoned me to come closer; grasping the cross-rail, I swung down
-beside him.
-
-"'I know our position' he cried in my ear 'Have no alarm, my friend.
-There are two large islands, and a third behind them, small like a
-button.  Watch closely the button, while I steer. When it touches the
-high headland of the second larger island, give me the news instantly'
-
-"He had hauled the junk a trifle to port as he spoke, and now with every
-opportunity began edging toward the land.  Perilous business, in that
-tremendous seaway; but he executed the manoeuvre with infinite patience
-and caution, with consummate skill.  Wilbur had now seen the land, had
-straightened his figure and leaned forward, watching it intently.
-Distances were veiled and distorted in that murky atmosphere; we were
-nearer to the headland than I had at first supposed.  For perhaps twenty
-minutes we ran on, a tense new excitement tugging at our hearts. Then,
-as we raced before the gale, I felt the sea begin to grow calmer;
-glancing to windward, I saw on the horizon a fringe of spouting reefs,
-and realized that we'd entered the zone of their protection.  The tall
-headland, which now revealed itself as the point of the second island,
-grew plainer with every moment; soon I made out the island like a
-button, and saw it closing rapidly on the land behind.
-
-"'_Now!_' I shouted to Lee Fu, holding up both my arms, when the two
-points of land had touched.
-
-"He swung the sampan a couple of points to starboard, discovering close
-beneath our bows the tip of another reef that stretched toward the land
-diagonally across the path of the wind.  In a moment we were abreast
-this point of reef; a hundred yards away its spray lashed our decks, as
-the low-lying black rocks caught the broken wash of the storm.  Another
-swing of the great tiller, and we had hauled up in the lee of the
-reef--in quiet water at last, but with the gale still screaming overhead
-like a defeated demon.  We reached along this weather shore in a smother
-of spray, until we came abruptly to the little island. This we passed
-with a rush, and shot forward into a relatively smooth basin that lay
-under the protection of the high headland on the larger island.
-
-"It was like nothing but a return from hell. The wind held us in a solid
-blast; but to feel the deck grow quiet, to be able to think, to speak,
-to hear ... to see the land close aboard....  By Jove, we were
-saved!--it seemed more incredible than the adventure itself.  Heads
-began to bob up forward, faces drawn with terror, frantic with
-relief--the faces of men who had lost and found a world.
-
-"A voice spoke gruffly beside us.  'By God, I hope you're satisfied!'
-We turned to see Wilbur standing at the head of the cross-rail.  A
-twitching face belied the nonchalance that he'd attempted to throw into
-the words.  It was a new phase of the man; his former perfect poise was
-stripped off like a mask, revealing an inner nature without force or
-quality, a common empty soul. The very assumption of coolness, a reflex
-of his over-powering relief, disclosed weakness instead of strength,
-impotence instead of authority.
-
-"'I don't know how we managed to come through!' he snarled  'In the name
-of God, what made you try it?  Nothing but luck--and now the typhoon's
-leaving us.  We can haul up here until the wind goes down'
-
-"'Is that all, Captain, that you have to say?' inquired Lee Fu, his
-attention still riveted on the course of the sampan.
-
-"Wilbur clutched the rail as if he would tear it from its fastenings.
-'A damned sight more, you blackguards, but I'll save that for the
-authorities!'
-
-"'You feel no thanks for your escape--and there is nothing on your
-mind?'
-
-"'We shouldn't have needed to escape, if you hadn't gone crazy.  Come,
-let's wind up this farce and get to anchor somewhere.  I'm fagged out'
-
-"'No, we are going on' said Lee Fu calmly, making no move to bring the
-sampan into the wind  'No time for rest, Captain; the voyage is not
-over'
-
-"'Going on?...'  Wilbur's glance swept the sea ahead.  Until that
-moment, I suppose, he thought he had won the battle; he hadn't dreamed
-that Lee Fu, after such a miraculous escape, would again put us all in
-jeopardy.  He saw that, on the course we were holding, in a very brief
-interval we should leave the protection of the headland.  What lay
-beyond, it was impossible to discover through the murk.  He turned back
-fiercely; for a moment he and Lee Fu gazed deep into each other's eyes,
-in a grapple that gave no quarter.
-
-"'Yes, Captain!' said Lee Fu sharply  'We have not yet reached the spot
-where the _Speedwell_ met her doom.  I cannot waste further time in
-talk.  Return to your station, before I am forced to threaten you
-again....  This is merely an interlude'
-
-
-
-
-                                  *IX*
-
-
-"Since that experience, I've many times examined the charts of the
-region where we were" Nichols went on  "But they don't begin to show the
-whole story.  Beyond the middle island, under whose headland we'd found
-transitory shelter, stretched a larger island, distant some five miles
-from the other; between them lay the most intricate, extraordinary and
-terrible nest of reefs ever devised by the mind of the Maker and the
-hand of geologic change.  No wonder the surveys haven't been completed
-in that region; I defy any man, in the calmest and clearest of weather,
-to take a craft among those reefs and come out with a whole bottom.  Any
-man, that is, but Lee Fu Chang, who isn't in the service of the
-Admiralty.
-
-"The outlying fringe of reefs that had broken our first approach ended
-at the middle island; beyond that, to windward, lay clear water, and the
-nest of reefs that I've mentioned received the full force of the wind
-and sea.  Five miles of water stretched in mad confusion, a solid
-whiteness of spouting foam that seemed to generate a hideous
-illumination, that reflected a dingy glow into the abandoned sky.  All
-the cataracts of the world rolled into one couldn't have matched the
-awful spectacle.  We were still flying through quiet water; but just
-beyond the point of the middle island the long wind-swept rollers burst
-in tall columns of spray that shut off the farther view like a curtain,
-where the reef of rocks stood in an apparently unbroken wall.
-
-"It was directly against the face of this wall that Lee Fu was driving
-the sampan.  The first lift of the outside swell had begun to catch us.
-I held my breath, as moment by moment we cut down the margin of safety.
-No use to interfere; perhaps he knew what he was doing, perhaps he had
-really gone mad under the terrific strain of the night.  As he steered,
-he seemed to be watching intently for landmarks; his eyes were
-everywhere, but more often, I noticed, on the shore to windward that
-rapidly changed its contour as we left it on the port quarter.  Was it
-possible that, in this abandoned spot, he knew his bearings ... that
-there was a way through?...
-
-"Wilbur, at Lee Fu's command, had left us without a word.  He now stood
-at the rail, supporting himself by main strength, facing the frightful
-line of the approaching reef; on his back was written the desperate
-struggle that went on in his soul.  It bent and twisted, sagging in
-sudden irresolution, writhing with stubborn obduracy, straightening and
-shaking itself at times as a wave of firmness and confidence passed over
-him, only to quail once more before the sight that met his eyes ... He
-couldn't believe that Lee Fu would hold that suicidal course.  Only
-another moment!--he kept crying to himself. Hold on a little longer!
-Yet the power of his will had been sapped by the long hours of night and
-the terrors of the dawn; and courage, which with him rested only on the
-sands of ostentation, had crumbled long ago.
-
-"For my part, I was cruelly afraid.  Without clear comprehension, I felt
-the tremendous significance of the moment, perceived that the crisis had
-come in the battle of the wills.  One or the other of them must break
-now; but if it didn't happen shortly, there would be no time left in
-which to record the triumph.  My eyes met Lee Fu's for an instant, as he
-swept the retreating shore.  He threw some message into the glance--but
-I had passed beyond the range of understanding. It seemed to me that he
-was excited, even elated, and as calm as ever--as if he'd found those
-marks he had been looking for, as if he knew his ground.
-
-"The deafening roar of the breakers filled our ears smothering the voice
-of the storm like an outburst of heavy artillery.  I turned away,
-overcome by a sickening sensation.  I couldn't bear to look any longer.
-Instead, I found myself watching Lee Fu.  He waited tensely, peering
-ahead and to windward with lightning glances.  A wave caught us, flung
-us forward.  Suddenly I heard him cry out at my side in exultation, as
-he bore down on the tiller.  The cry was echoed from forward by a loud
-scream that shot like an arrow through the thunder, where Wilbur had
-sunk beside the rail.  The sampan fell off, still carried high on the
-crest of the wave....
-
-"Then, in a moment like the coming of death, we plunged into the reef.
-I have no knowledge of what took place; there are no words to tell the
-story.  Solid water swamped us; the thunder of the surf crushed the
-mind....  But we didn't strike, there was a way through, we had crossed
-the outer margin of the reef.  The sampan emerged from the breakers,
-remained afloat, slowly became manageable.  The wind caught us again.
-Ahead stretched the suggestion of a channel.  Ten minutes passed, ten
-minutes that seemed like as many ages, while we ran the terrible
-gauntlet of the reef, surrounded by towering breakers, lost in the
-appalling steady roar of the elements.  Suddenly, without warning, we
-were flung between a pair of jagged ledges and launched forward bodily
-on the surface of an open lagoon.
-
-"A low rocky island lay in the centre of the nest of reefs, a stretch of
-open water to leeward of it, all completely hidden from view until that
-moment.  The open water ran for perhaps a couple of miles; beyond that,
-again, the surf began in another unbroken line.  It would take us ten
-minutes to cross this lagoon ... another interlude.
-
-"'Bring Captain Wilbur' said Lee Fu in my ear.
-
-"I crept forward, where Wilbur lay beside the rail, his arm around a
-stanchion.  He was moaning to himself like an injured man.  I kicked him
-roughly; he lifted an ashen face.
-
-"'Come aft--you're wanted' I cried.
-
-"He followed like a whipped cur.  Lee Fu, at the tiller, beckoned us to
-stand beside him.  I pulled Wilbur up by the slack of the coat, and
-pinned him against the cross-rail.
-
-"'This is the end' said Lee Fu, speaking in loud jerks, as he steered
-across the lagoon  'From this haven there is no way out, except by the
-way we came.  That way, of course, is closed by the gale.  To windward
-is shelter, ahead is destruction. I will seek the shelter if you will
-speak.  If not, I shall go on.  By this time, Captain, you know me to be
-a man of my word'
-
-"'You yellow devil!...'
-
-"'Waste no time in recriminations.  Beyond these reefs, Captain, lies
-the wreck of your ship, the _Speedwell_.  I have brought you to see the
-scene.  There my friend met death at your hands. You have had full time
-to consider.  Will you join him beneath the waves, or will you return to
-Hong Kong?  A word will save you.  Remember, the moments pass very
-swiftly'
-
-"'What about yourself and Nichols?' blustered Wilbur.
-
-"'We go too ... or stay ... it makes little difference.  This is a
-matter that you cannot understand.  We do not care'
-
-"At this juncture, I was fated to under-estimate Wilbur after all.  I
-thought him broken; but a last flicker of obstinate pride remained, to
-prop his extraordinary ego.  He pulled himself together again, and
-whirled on us.
-
-"'I didn't do it!' he snarled.  'It's a damned, scoundrelly lie!'
-
-"'Very well, Captain.  Go forward once more, and reserve your final
-explanation for the gods'
-
-"The flicker of pride persisted; Wilbur staggered off, holding by the
-rail.  I waited beside Lee Fu.  Thus we stood, like wooden images,
-watching the approach of the lagoon's leeward margin.  Had Lee Fu spoken
-truthfully--was there no way out, in that direction?  I couldn't be
-certain.  All I knew was that the wall of spouting surf was at our bows,
-that the jaws of death were opening again.
-
-"Suddenly Wilbur's head snapped back; he flung up his arms in a gesture
-of finality, shaking clenched fists into the sky.  With a thrill that
-tingled to my finger-tips, I realized that he was at the point of
-surrender.  The torture had reached his vitals.  He turned and
-floundered aft, holding his hands before his face like a man struck
-blind.
-
-"'What is it I must say?' he cried hoarsely, in a voice that by its very
-abasement had taken on a certain dignity.
-
-"'You know.  The truth, or nothing!'
-
-"His face was shocking in its self-revelation; a strong man breaking
-isn't a pleasant object.  I saw how awful had been this struggle of the
-wills. He came to his final decision as we watched, lost his last
-grip....
-
-"'I did it--as you said--you must know all about it.  I suppose I sank
-her--I had no intention ... You madman!  For God's sake, haul up, before
-you're in the breakers!'
-
-"'Show me your insurance money' said Lee Fu inexorably.
-
-"Wilbur dug frantically in an inside pocket, produced a packet of bank
-notes, and held them out in a hand that trembled violently as the gale
-fluttered the crisp leaves.
-
-"'Throw them overboard'
-
-"For the fraction of a second he hesitated; then all resolution went out
-in his eyes like a dying flame.  He extended his arm rigidly, and loosed
-the notes.  They were gone down the wind almost before our eyes could
-follow them.
-
-"In the same instant, Lee Fu flung down the great tiller.  The sampan
-came into the wind with a shock that threw us all to the deck.  Close
-under our lee quarter lay the breakers, less than a couple of hundred
-yards away.  Lee Fu made frantic signals forward, where the crew were
-watching us in a state of utter terror.  I felt the centreboard drop; a
-patch of sail rose slowly on the mainmast.  The boat answered, gathered
-headway, drove forward....
-
-"It was just in time.  We had run past the low island, and couldn't hope
-to regain its shelter in such a gale; but a pile of tumbled rocks lay
-off its leeward end, carving out a small sub-zone of protection.  This
-spot we might be able to fetch, if we managed to escape the clutch of
-the breakers. Escape them we did, after a hair-raising five minutes, and
-threw out our anchors in the most precarious berth ever afforded, with
-our stern brushing the very fringe of the breakers.  But the anchors
-held; and there we rode until the storm was over.
-
-"Wilbur lay as he had fallen after the sampan's frantic plunge.  He made
-no movement; and we, on our part, left him where he was"
-
-
-
-
-                                  *X*
-
-
-"Two nights later, under a clear starry sky, we slipped through Lymoon
-Pass on the tail of the land breeze.  Before we reached Wanchi, it fell
-flat calm.  We shipped the long sweeps and began to row; the chattering
-crew, who'd never expected to see Hong Kong again, fell to work
-willingly. The lights of the city twinkled against the Peak, the
-sleeping fleet swung at anchor in the landlocked harbour; all was
-silence and tranquillity ... as we see it now.  But that night, let me
-tell you, the familiar scene was invested with a poignant charm.  At
-length we reached the bulkhead, from which we'd taken our maniac
-departure three days before, and settled in our berth as comfortably as
-if we'd just returned from a pleasure trip down the bay.
-
-"No words were said as we came in.  I sat against the bulwarks, almost
-afraid to move, like a man awakening to consciousness after a long siege
-of fever.  A little forward of my position, Wilbur rose to his feet.  He
-hadn't spoken or touched food since that tragic hour under the reefs two
-nights before; had spent most of his time below decks, locked in a tiny
-stateroom, and had come out only in the last few minutes, as if in
-response to the nearing sounds of the land.  He stood at the rail, a
-figure wrapped in silence and immobility, watching them berth the
-sampan. Then, without a glance in our direction, he walked to the
-gangway and stepped ashore.  On the bulkhead he paused for a moment
-irresolute, turning and gazing across the harbour.  His form stood out
-plainly against a bright light up the street.  It had lost those lines
-of vigour and alertness; it was the figure of a different and older man.
-A broken figure, that could never again be the same....
-
-"A moment later he had lurched away, vanishing suddenly in the darkness
-of a side street. Three days afterwards, we heard that he had taken the
-boat for Singapore.  He hasn't been seen or heard of in this part of the
-world since that day.
-
-"When he had gone, that night at the bulkhead Lee Fu approached me; we
-crossed the deck of the sampan, and stood for a long while silent at the
-harbour rail.
-
-"'Thank you, Captain' said he at last  'As I foresaw, it has been
-supremely interesting.  For your part, I hope you feel repaid?'
-
-"'It's quite enough to be alive, just now' I confessed without shame  'I
-want to see a chart of that locality, Lee Fu.  I want to find out what
-you did'
-
-"'Oh, that?  It was not much.  The gods were always with us, as you must
-have observed. As for the rest of it, I know that region pretty well'
-
-"'Evidently....  Did the _Speedwell_ fetch up among those same reefs, or
-to leeward of them?'
-
-"'The _Speedwell_?  Captain, you did not believe my little pleasantry?
-We were nowhere near the wreck of the _Speedwell_, at any time--as
-Captain Wilbur should have known, had he retained his mental
-perspective'
-
-"I smiled feebly.  'Well, I didn't know it. Tell me another thing, Lee
-Fu.  Were you bluffing, there at the last, or was there really no
-passage through the reef?'
-
-"'So far as I am aware, Captain, there was no passage.  I believe we
-were heading for solid rock when we came into the wind'
-
-"The answer surprised me.  'Would you have piled us up' I asked 'if
-Wilbur hadn't given in?'
-
-"'That is a hypothetical question.  I knew perfectly well that I should
-not be forced to do it.  I was only afraid lest, in the final anguish,
-Captain Wilbur might lose his seaman's judgment, and so might wait too
-long.  That, I confess, would have been unfortunate.  Otherwise, there
-was no especial doubt or danger'
-
-"'I'm glad to hear it!' I exclaimed, with a shudder of recollection  'It
-wasn't apparent at the time'
-
-"'No, perhaps not.  Time was very swift, just then.  I will tell you
-now, Captain Nichols, that I myself had begun to grow alarmed.  He
-waited very long.  He was more wilful than I had fully anticipated; a
-strong, determined man, and an arch-criminal.  But, as it chanced, this
-made it the more interesting'
-
-"I didn't care to argue such a subtle point. 'What did you have in mind,
-Lee Fu' I asked 'before the typhoon shifted?  Did you expect the centre
-of it to catch us?'
-
-"The question seemed to amuse him.  'Captain, I had no plan' he
-explained in a puzzled tone  'It is dangerous to make plans, or to live
-according to a fixed design.  There was a task to be begun; the
-determination of its direction and result lay with the gods.  It was
-plain to me that I had been called upon to act; beyond that I neither
-saw nor cared to see.  Action once begun, I seized events as they came
-my way....  How characteristic that you ask me for my plan! Would you
-have the temerity to inquire into the divine control of events?  Or do
-you think that a man really may make a plan?'
-
-"I could believe his statement only because I'd witnessed his incredible
-calmness.
-
-"He waved a hand toward the city.  'Come, my friend, let us sleep' said
-he  'We have earned our rest--and that is something not always won from
-life.  But beware of over-confidence, and never plan.  It is by
-straining to see the future that men exhaust themselves for present
-usefulness.  It is by daring to make plans that men bring down on their
-heads the wrath of heaven. We are the instruments of the gods; through
-us, they put their own plans in operation.  The only failure in life is
-not to hear when the gods command.  In this case, however, there could
-have been no question; the design was too apparent. From the first, I
-was sure and happy.  There were constantly too many propitious signs'"
-
-
-
-
-                          *THE UNCHARTED ISLE*
-
-
-
-                          *THE UNCHARTED ISLE*
-
-                                  *I*
-
-
-"They say the man is mad" I whispered, nodding across the room
-"Pendleton pointed him out to me in Wellington Street this morning"
-
-Nichols gave his twisted smile.  "Yes, mad, or inspired, or something
-very wonderful.  Who is competent to judge?  But I haven't seen him up
-this way for a long while.  Another expedition must be on foot in search
-of the Uncharted Isle"
-
-"What's that?  You know him, then?"
-
-"Perhaps I am the only man in the East who does know him, in the proper
-sense of the word. Every one else listens, laughs, and passes on. But I
-believe.  Yes, in spite of ridicule and life's disaster, I continue to
-believe ... well, not so much in the fact itself, as in the man.  By
-Jove, he's faithful--and that, you must admit, is marvel enough.  And
-his madness isn't entirely impossible; it can be explained.  Yet it
-strikes the world as being funny--and that's his crowning misfortune.  A
-man in search of a lost and apparently non-existent island can't help
-being a little ridiculous, I suppose, until he becomes a thundering
-bore.  For no one else, of course, is looking for such a thing, or wants
-to find one. We keep safely within the charted area.... But let me tell
-you the story, and you can form your own opinion.  Don't attract his
-attention; he won't notice us here in the shadow"
-
-There used to be a certain tea-house in Hong Kong, the name of which was
-jealously guarded from touring vandals.  It opened on the face of an
-enchanted terrace high above the harbour and the town; from the parapet
-the eye travelled inland over the low peninsula of Kowloon, as far as
-the foothills of China, the fringe of a mighty land veiled in mystery.
-Romance came to that terrace, filtering through lacy bamboo leaves,
-borne on the night breeze along with the fragrance of flowers and the
-music of hidden voices.  The place wasn't a temple of the conventional.
-It isn't running now; the songs are still, the little cups no longer
-tinkle in the half-darkness, and no sweet, startled faces, peep out at
-visitors from behind the dragon-screens.
-
-Nichols and I had been sitting there some time that evening, when the
-man came in.  Of course Nichols knew him; who with any pretentious to a
-history wasn't catalogued in his omnivorous files?  While I waited, I
-listened to a rapid conversation in Chinese somewhere in the back of the
-establishment.  Dusk had swallowed the white houses and green slopes
-below us; the riding lights on the harbour had begun to prick out the
-berths of ships; with the coming of night, voices seemed hushed among
-the yellow lanterns.
-
-"What is madness?  Who will lay down the line between madness and
-sanity?" demanded Nichols suddenly  "They are like right and wrong, or
-good and evil .... much as you want to believe.  If we dared for a
-moment to face the logic of existence, I think we should find that we're
-all a little mad, each in his own way.  An entirely sane man would sort
-of puff out, like a candle.  It's our madness that keeps us going, feeds
-the flame.  The world's an illusion, anyway, of course; ergo, why aren't
-the maddest people the sanest?  Certainly, the maddest man of all would
-be he who tried to define the states of the human mind.
-
-"For that's beyond our province.  They say, for instance, that Devereux
-is mad: what they mean is that they can't fathom him.  His life,
-likewise, hasn't been charted.  Well, what's the difficulty?  All the
-lives and islands haven't been discovered yet.  And there are certain
-bald facts, written in black-and-white records, that seem to support his
-claim...."
-
-A waxy Chinaman changed our tea.  Nichols gazed thoughtfully into the
-soft darkness beyond the terrace, getting his story under way.
-
-"Devereux is no longer a young man, as you see" he began slowly  "I'd
-say he was about our own age.  He was born and reared, I believe, in our
-own New England, though I've never heard the name of his home town.  I
-presume he had parents there once, brothers and sisters, maybe a
-sweetheart.  The Devereuxs, you know, are a fine family, with strains of
-originality cropping out here and there, which might once in a while
-have amounted to genius in a free atmosphere.  They're a high-strung
-breed.  I'd be willing to affirm that, even before the episode of the
-island, this particular Devereux was a serious and romantic soul.  Look
-at his face, hanging in the glow of that lantern.  Temperament,
-sensibility, melancholy....  But what he was, and what he might have
-been, are both sunk in the tremendous distances of a lifetime, obscured
-by the apparition of an island, the wraith of a tragic destiny.
-
-"He went to sea, in the wake of his generation. At the age of
-twenty-one, he had worked up from the forecastle to a room on the port
-side of the forward cabin; in due time he became first mate of the ship
-_Evening Star_.  I forget who was captain of her, or what was the name
-of the second mate who managed to reach Callao in the whaleboat.  Those
-who survived the disaster have vanished along with those who never
-returned, and Devereux alone has perpetuated the event in nautical
-history because of a madness that descended on him out of the sky.
-
-"They sailed from New York for San Francisco in a year that is likewise
-immaterial, and had a long and tedious passage round the Horn. It was
-one of those unlucky and exasperating voyages, you know--calms, and even
-trade winds, and unseasonable storms; so that when they finally got
-headed north in the Pacific, they were a disheartened ship's company.
-The southeast trades in the Pacific failed them completely; whatever
-wind they found, from 20 south up to the line, came from the east and
-north; and with the best course they could make, the ship was crowded
-over far to the westward of the regular track.  Then, as they approached
-the line, the northeast breeze settled down in earnest, and nothing for
-it but to hold her on a N.N.W. course, as close to the wind as possible
-on the starboard tack.  They managed to weather the fringe of the South
-Sea Islands by a few hundred miles, and drifted across the line
-somewhere in the neighbourhood of 135 deg. west longitude. Provisions
-and water were holding out well, though one hundred and seventy-five
-days had passed since they'd lost sight of Sandy Hook.
-
-"One evening in the early dog-watch, they noticed a few land birds
-flying about the ship. Devereux told me they were quite excited over the
-incident for an hour or two, with the quick sympathy of sailors for an
-unusual manifestation of life-forces.  The nearest land at that time was
-the Marquesas, five hundred miles away to the southward.  Some of the
-men tried to entice the birds to alight on deck or in the rigging, but
-they didn't seem at all weary, and scorned the blandishments of food.
-
-"'Wonderful creatures--birds' said the captain, as they were discussing
-the occurrence on the quarter-deck  'Five hundred miles isn't a drop in
-the bucket to them.  All the bob-o'-links at home go to Brazil and back
-every winter'
-
-"'They've probably run over from the Marquesas since supper' chimed in
-the second mate  'Half an hour from now they'll be back there, perching
-on some tree above an island beauty.  God, I'd like to be a bird!'
-
-"But Devereux demurred to their conclusion--he knew something of the
-habits of birds. 'That's all right in the migrating season, but these
-birds don't migrate' said he  'You can see that they aren't bound
-anywhere in particular. And land birds don't fly five hundred miles to
-sea for the fun of going back again.  They do get tuckered, too.  I
-think it's mighty strange'
-
-"He had the first watch.  It was one of those typical Pacific nights--a
-velvet sky, a smooth sea, the air somehow expressing the character of an
-ocean illimitable and magnificent, an ocean that spreads like the floor
-of the universe.  After the captain had gone below for the night,
-Devereux cast his imagination adrift to follow those birds, to see the
-land again.  What could their visit have meant?  Was there any land
-nearer than the Marquesas--perhaps an uninhabited island? He promised
-himself a careful survey of the chart when he went below at midnight....
-He'd been thinking in this desultory fashion some time, lost in the
-dreams of night watches, when a sharp cry from forward struck him like a
-knife flying through the darkness.
-
-"You know those single cries on shipboard, in the dead of night--cries
-of warning, of apprehension, of impending danger.  The heart stops for a
-moment at the sound.  Then a thousand possibilities crowd into the mind
-at once, a thousand processes of thought leap into action.  There can be
-no indecision; moments are priceless.  And there must be no mistake.
-
-"The cry met him a second time as he passed the mizzen rigging, running
-forward.  '_Breakers ahead!_'  Instinctively, he shouted the order over
-his shoulder as he ran.
-
-"'Put the helm down!  _Hard down!  Hard down!_'
-
-"But it was too late to save her.  He told me that he paused at the
-break of the poop, listening, and in a sudden hush that went over the
-ship, heard distinctly a low sucking sound under the bows--the horrible
-gasping of water over rocks awash.  He clung to the rail, cowed by the
-only fear a sailor knows.  At that moment, she struck heavily, and stood
-still.  She had been making about five knots, enough to give her plenty
-of momentum.  The shock was terrific: some of the top-hamper crashed to
-the deck, and the voices of men suddenly broke out in screams of terror.
-The ship rose a little by the head, seemed to draw back, and surged
-forward again with a dull, rending, sickening plunge.
-
-"But what's the need to rehearse the details of that oldest tragedy of
-the sea?  There was time enough for them to get out the boats, time
-enough, even, to fully provision them--and that's more than some have
-been allowed.  But the ship was dead and done for.  Her whole bow must
-have been stove in under water.  Five minutes after they pushed clear of
-her, she slumped like a rock, and they lost her in the darkness.  A
-whirlpool of foam showed for a while on the surface of the black water.
-Then that, too, faded; and the wide, open Pacific received them in their
-three boats as frail as cockle-shells, and the velvet night covered it
-all.
-
-"The captain commanded the longboat, the second mate and Devereux had a
-whaleboat apiece.  Devereux's was the smallest; his crew consisted of
-six men besides himself.  The boats drew together on the quiet water for
-a consultation. A deep stillness invested the place, the stillness of a
-lofty cavern, of an empty world; and somewhere off in the gloom that
-awful sucking sound went on, now loud, now dying out to a faint echo,
-like a demon chuckling over human disaster.
-
-"All night they played hide-and-seek with that demon in the darkness.
-The breeze fell off, and after a while it grew flat calm.  At times the
-voice of the reef was hoarse and low and languid; at times it purred and
-bubbled energetically; at times it would be silent so long that they'd
-lean over the gunwale to listen, thinking they had lost it--when
-unexpectedly it would snarl out again, close at hand.  In the middle of
-the night they did seem to be really losing the sound, and were afraid
-they'd drifted from the vicinity; they bent to the oars rather
-aimlessly, for no one could judge the exact direction, and before they
-knew it were almost running afoul of the hideous thing. Some of the men
-swore that the sound moved on the water; this seemed plausible, for it
-was to be supposed that the reef extended a considerable distance, yet
-the notion nevertheless gave rise to a vague superstitious fear.  Either
-it moved, or they were surrounded by a nest of reefs--one was about as
-bad as the other.  Devereux said it was a night to drive a nervous man
-crazy, a night that they began to think would never end.
-
-"When dawn came at last, they looked about them and saw nothing at
-all--nothing but an unbroken horizon, a boundless ocean, a few spars
-floating idly in the midst of a great calm, and a little dark dot like a
-pimple on the face of the waters, just in front of the rising sun.
-
-"They rowed toward this pimple on the surface. It opened and closed with
-the sucking motion of a loose mouth, and between the monstrous
-flickering lips of water a point of rock protruded, black and swollen
-like the tongue of a drowned man. It seemed impossible that this
-solitary rock had made all the commotion of the night, had invested them
-as if with an army of breakers; yet there was absolutely nothing else in
-sight--the rest had been imagination.
-
-"They rowed across the south face of the rock, where the ship had
-struck, and found the water there deep past all knowing.  The rock
-wasn't coral, and no coral formation surrounded it.  In the clear blue
-water beneath them huge banners of kelp waved and winnowed like lifeless
-hands. Not a vestige of the _Evening Star_ remained; she had disappeared
-in the unfathomable gulfs of the Pacific.  It was a mere crag that had
-caught her, a needle-point piercing the floor of an otherwise
-unobstructed ocean, the topmost spire of some mighty mountain sunk in
-the bowels of the world. It may never before have been seen by mortal
-man; it certainly wasn't indicated on the best charts of that day.  She
-would have had to seek a thousand years to touch it.  A ship's length
-either side would have cleared her....
-
-"They waited beside the rock till noon, to get an observation.  Then
-they rowed away to the northward, bound for the Sandwich Islands.  The
-dark spot on the water dwindled and disappeared in their wake.  Devereux
-told me that, quite unaccountably, he felt his heart sinking as they
-lost sight of it; after all, it was their only link with a remote and
-perhaps unattainable world.
-
-"The first night after the disaster, a heavy squall separated the boats.
-They couldn't find each other, and never came together again.  The
-second mate reached Callao after a terrible journey, the first to report
-the loss of the _Evening Star_.  He had been nearly swamped in that
-first squall.  For two days he had hunted frantically for the other
-boats.  Then, not being a good navigator, and having a very imperfect
-chart of the Pacific Islands, he had changed his course and steered due
-east, knowing that he would strike the American continent if he could
-keep on going. The fact of his arrival in Callao, its date, and his
-reported date of the disaster, are beyond dispute; for my own
-satisfaction, I have looked these matters up in the official records.
-
-"The captain, in the longboat, was never heard of again.  Him and his
-crew the Pacific took for toll.
-
-"Devereux was picked up at sea, alive, well, and alone in the _Evening
-Star's_ small whaleboat, _exactly one year and three months after the
-ship went down_"
-
-"Easy, Nichols!" I remonstrated  "Say that again, please.  You can't
-expect me to swallow it whole at the first try"
-
-"Those are the facts, I tell you" said Nichols calmly  "I have also
-verified this latter statement, through correspondence with the captain
-who picked him up.  It really happened--and the dates were as I said.
-He was picked up just north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean by the
-ship _Vanguard_, and brought in to San Francisco. I was informed by the
-captain of the _Vanguard_ that he had been driven out of his course by
-meeting the northeast trade winds too far south, and had sighted
-Devereux adrift one morning in about 135 deg. west and 2 deg. north.
-The man was nearly dead from thirst, and was quite mad when they took
-him aboard; raved about an island nearby, said he'd been blown away from
-it, and begged them to cruise in search of it before they left the
-ground.  There was no island in that vicinity, of course, nearer than
-the Marquesas. 'I was sorry for the poor fellow' the captain of the
-_Vanguard_ wrote me 'but we couldn't waste time in indulging his fancy.
-He quieted down after a day or two, and seemed to settle into a sort of
-dull melancholy'
-
-"This castaway, giving his name as Devereux, claimed to have been mate
-of the _Evening Star_, lost in that same quarter of the Pacific the year
-before.  The people on the _Vanguard_ had heard nothing of this
-disaster; in fact, the first report of it, brought in by the second
-mate, had just reached San Francisco from Callao when they got in.  To
-corroborate the story, however, the whaleboat in which Devereux had been
-picked up had presented a battered and weather-beaten appearance, her
-paint peeling off and her bottom badly scarred, as if she'd been used a
-good while on the beach; and on her stern they had been able to decipher
-the letters--ENI-G --AR. Devereux claimed that his ship had touched a
-needle of rock and had sunk immediately; but no danger of that nature
-was laid down on the _Vanguard's_ chart.  A year later, as a result of
-these conflicting and sensational tales, the United States Government
-sent a gunboat to look for the rock, perhaps with secret instructions to
-keep a weather eye open for Devereux's island; but nothing was to be
-found.  Devereux couldn't remember the _Evening Star's_ exact latitude
-and longitude on the day before the disaster; his records and
-instruments had vanished along with his crew in the heart of a deep
-mystery.  And the second mate, who alone came in in regular order, was a
-poor navigator, you'll remember, and may easily have made an error about
-the place of his departure.  At any rate, nothing was to be found.  On
-the charts of the Hydrographic Office to-day you'll see, in that
-position, a dotted circle, marked Evening Star Rock, with an
-interrogation point after the name.
-
-"Devereux's story was a nine days' wonder in San Francisco, confirmed in
-substance as it was by the recent authentic report from Callao.  The
-newspapers made good copy of it.  Many believed him outright; a man
-doesn't float about in the Pacific for over a year and emerge from the
-experience in robust health, without there being some simple and
-practical explanation.  Yet sensational publicity quickly prejudiced the
-case, as it invariably does.  After the first flush of pleasurable
-excitement, public interest began to put him down either as a hoax or a
-madman, and then promptly forgot him.  One of the papers tried to start
-a subscription for a schooner, so that he might search for his island,
-but it met with little response. The return wave of prosaic life rolled
-over him, left him submerged and helpless.  For a while he went about
-seeking sympathy and assistance, but his melancholy tale soon came to be
-a nuisance, doors were shut in his face, and men avoided him.
-
-"At length he had the good sense to go away. He wandered to the East,
-moved about from place to place.  The story followed him, distorted in
-the passage of time.  And so we meet him here, a man with a strange
-hallucination--an interesting case, and romantic, but unquestionably
-mad"
-
-
-
-
-                                  *II*
-
-
-Nichols leaned toward me, his eyes kindling. "Let me take you back to
-the morning after the squall that separated the boats" said he  "The sun
-rose in a clear sky; the quick tropical storm had entirely disappeared.
-Devereux looked about him, and saw no sign of the others.  One hardly
-realizes, until one has experienced the fact, how easy it is for boats
-to become separated in the night, especially under severe conditions of
-weather, or how rapidly a dozen miles may spring up between them.  And a
-dozen might as well be as many hundreds, for all chances of their coming
-together again.  The wind had died to a baffling breeze that seemed to
-be trying to blow from all directions at once.  Devereux had no
-chronometer--nothing but a pocket watch, a sextant, a compass, and an
-old general chart of the Pacific.  After an hour's study of his
-situation, he came to a quick decision.  The chart and the pocket watch
-couldn't be trusted to get him to the Sandwich Islands; like the second
-mate, somewhere within a radius of twenty-five miles from him at that
-moment, he changed the boat's course and steered due east in search of a
-continent.
-
-"While they were getting up the sail to catch a wandering air that
-seemed to have settled in the west, a man forward shouted in tones of
-horror that the water cask was empty.  A frantic investigation verified
-the fact.  An oar carelessly thrown down had loosened the plug in the
-head of the cask, and their precious supply of water was washing around
-in the bottom of the boat. They tasted it, but found it too salt to
-drink; the boat, fresh from the top of the forward house, was leaking
-quite a little.
-
-"Then began the nightmare of heat and thirst. The sun that day was
-pitiless.  They had no luck with the wind, which soon fell flat calm;
-the exertion of rowing added to the misery.  Not a drop of rain fell.
-By noon, the horror of the first day's thirst had begun to grip them; by
-nightfall it had them cowed and broken, whining for water. It's that
-first day which is always the worst, you know--until the end.  Devereux
-still hoped that he might pick up one of the other boats, and all hands
-kept a sharp lookout; but the hope died as the hours wore on.  The sheer
-loneliness of the vast Pacific under a brilliant sun oppressed them like
-a foretaste of death, like a vista of eternity.  They made little
-progress that day.
-
-"A night passed, between sleeping and waking; dawn once more showed them
-a deserted sea. After a couple of hours' rowing, they threw down the
-oars in despair.  What was the use of making little dabs with a wooden
-blade at an ocean beyond span or circumference?  Devereux says that he,
-too, was completely disheartened.  They rested all that forenoon,
-waiting for a breeze.  By this time the thirst had eaten into their
-vitals.  Spots were dancing before their eyes, and frequently one of the
-men would insist that he saw a boat on the horizon; but after a while
-they learned to accept the cruelty of this delusion.
-
-"Some time a little after noon, Devereux was in the stern sheets
-steering; he had persuaded the men to take up the oars again.  He was
-gazing off on the port quarter, in an aimless state of misery, when all
-at once he thought his mind must be breaking with the thirst.  A vision
-swam before him--a vision of a peaceful island, fringed with palm trees,
-crowned by a low green hill, all shimmering with heat and inverted in
-the sky. He says he gazed at it a long time without daring to speak; he
-was afraid the others wouldn't be able to see it, afraid it wasn't real.
-Finally he could stand the suspense no longer.
-
-"'Look!' he cried, pointing  'Is anything there?'
-
-"And they saw it, too.  For it was nothing but the mirage of an actual
-island, an indeterminate distance away.  It hung in the sky like a
-mysterious apparition.  They regarded it fixedly, with glances almost
-hostile, as if questioning its integrity; but the vision persisted.
-Then they turned the boat, and rowed like madmen throughout the
-afternoon.  The mirage had faded in the course of an hour; but Devereux
-urged them on by arguments and promises, explaining the nature of the
-phenomenon and enlarging on their chances of deliverance.  Hadn't they
-all seen it?  It couldn't be far off; it must lie somewhere along the
-line of the compass bearing that he had taken.
-
-"That night they rowed by watches, Devereux himself taking stroke oar
-with either crew.  And when morning dawned, the real island lay right
-side up a couple of miles ahead, fair and alluring on the steel-blue rim
-of the sea.  You can imagine the hoarse shout that went up from parched
-throats!  Weak and wild, they struggled painfully at the oars; and
-shortly after sunrise the boat entered a little cove that split the
-front of the island, where the ground swell at once dropped off under
-the shelter of a curving point of land. A few strokes more, and the surf
-caught them. A long roller flung them high up the beach--a lucky thing,
-for God knows they wouldn't have had the strength to save themselves.
-The roller went out, leaving them planted upright on a white coral
-strand; in the silence before the coming of another wave, they heard the
-drip of a little stream running down the hillside at the head of the
-cove.  Water!  They left the boat as she was, the oars cock-billed in
-the rowlocks, the sail, which they'd hoisted just before dawn and had
-been too weak or excited to take in, flapping loose across the gunwale,
-and ran with the last strength in their bodies toward the sound.  The
-rivulet had cut a shallow channel in the coral, from the jungle to the
-water's edge; they threw themselves face downward, buried their mouths
-in the stream, and drank like animals.
-
-"For some time afterwards they lay as they had fallen, saturated like so
-many sponges, feeling the water sink into their blood.  Then Devereux,
-who had exercised his will power and drunk as sparingly as possible, got
-to his feet and turned toward the jungle.  A second time he thought his
-eyes were deceiving him.  A woman stood there in the half-shadow, still
-grasping the branches she had parted as she stepped out on the beach.
-She didn't appear frightened, but gazed at him frankly in wonder and
-admiration.  He thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever
-seen.  His heart went out to her in that astonishing moment of their
-meeting, went out freely, without restraint or volition ... and she's
-held it ever since, and always will.  One can hardly imagine, to see him
-sitting over there so dejectedly, that off on the floor of the Pacific,
-years ago, and utterly unseen of the world of men, he lived such a
-transcendent moment, that such a romance came to him under the sun that
-we all know.  It takes one back to the days of Sinbad and Urashima and
-Oisin.
-
-"He advanced toward her, making signs of friendliness--of affection,
-it's to be supposed. Their hearts were free as the air, and they went
-naturally, like God's children, into each other's arms.  She remained
-unafraid ... so he discovered that she loved him, too.  Their meeting at
-the head of the beach had been unobserved; they melted together into the
-jungle like creatures of the light, and the boughs that she'd parted as
-if opening the door of life silently closed behind them.
-
-"A little later he returned to the beach and aroused his crew; the men
-had fallen into a sort of stupor as they lay in the hot sun.  The girl
-led them inland to the main village of her people, where they were
-received like gods dropped from the sky"
-
-Nichols leaned back in his chair, smiling crookedly.  "The story of the
-advance of civilization" said he grimly "is the story of how savages
-have had to learn that white men aren't gods.  It's an old story
-now--old and threadbare.  It's been pretty nearly completely learned....
-These people among whom Devereux and his party had fallen had never seen
-a white man before.  The story was all new and fresh to them.  But owing
-to the wholly exceptional circumstances, its ending didn't run according
-to the usual distressful formula.  In fact, it resulted in a real
-victory.
-
-"The white men were very few, to begin with; and they couldn't call on
-their governments, at the head of the organized world, to support and
-further with mechanical engines of destruction their various lusts and
-designs.  Happily, three of them died within a week after they had
-landed, from the effects of that first drink of water and the
-intemperate eating that followed.  The other three, however, rapidly
-recovered strength and peccancy, and began casting their eyes on the
-women of the village.  You know the ripe, luxuriant beauty of the
-Marquesan women: these people were of the same root stock.  It wasn't
-many days before a number of violent outrages had been committed, which
-rang around the island--a couple of husbands murdered, maidens violated,
-and wives put to shame.
-
-"Now, these people were moral, of course, after the wise and simple code
-of nature; and the chief of the village was a man of character and
-decision.  He didn't waste time in parley; when the crimes were brought
-home beyond peradventure, and it was seen that the gods had turned to
-clay, he had the offending sailors taken into custody, and himself
-dispatched all three of them with the same club.  Later their best parts
-were eaten at a feast of fairly legitimate rejoicing. Devereux was
-spared because he had behaved himself, and because of the love of the
-girl, who, it appears, was the chief's daughter.
-
-"We've all dreamed of a life of truth and freedom; but few of us have
-both won it and lost it, in the brief span of a year.  You should see
-Devereux's eyes kindle, while he tells you of it, while he's trying to
-convince you that he isn't mad.  The people of this island had no
-traditions of their origin, no legends of visits from the outside world.
-It happens, through the fact of prevailing winds in the Pacific, that no
-sailing ship route passed near this region; steamers, also, gave it a
-wide berth, for it didn't lie between anywhere and anywhere.  It was a
-place apart, visited by human agency only on the remotest chance.  It
-may well be that during a period of many years the only two vessels to
-wander down those particular miles of waters were the ship that left
-Devereux floating on the ocean and the ship that picked him up in the
-same spot over a year later.  Thus it was that the island had remained
-undiscovered, peopled by a race without knowledge of the world.  They
-were honest and lovable children--much as God intended all of us to be,
-I suppose, much as we might have been if we hadn't found a way
-temporarily to surmount our destiny.
-
-"The island itself was an emerald anchored in a field of cobalt, a jewel
-floating on the broad bosom of the sea.  The rustling palm trees waved
-day and night before the steady trade winds; the air hung cool in the
-shadows, the white surf broke on the reefs in constant thunder, and the
-tropical sunlight surrounded the gem like a halo of misty gold.
-Devereux lived there a year, and the love that came to him partook of
-the nature of the place--fresh, divine, alluring, rich with colour and
-meaning, pure as the light, true as the unchanging wind.  A son was born
-to them.  Nothing crossed their lives of sorrow or evil.  They had
-forgotten time and its desperate occasions.  The new day was but a
-repetition of the old.
-
-"But I can't begin to show you half of the peace and beauty of that
-year.  Ask me what the heart of man desires, and I'll answer that every
-element of it existed there on the island--conquest, honour, joy,
-creative impulse, love--enough for a dreamer or a doer, the wise design
-of nature with her uneasy and aspiring offsprings.  Devereux grew to
-love the people; and because he seemed so different, yet conformed
-naturally to the island proprieties, they exalted him.  And, marvellous
-to relate, he knew the worth of what he had found; he fulfilled the
-opportunity, he appreciated the honour, he was worthy of the romantic
-choice"
-
-Nichols struck the table sharply with his fist. "Beware of too much
-happiness!" he growled "That's another lesson of a jaundiced
-civilization. It isn't expedient to embrace truth too hard....  Who
-could have conceived an existence safer than Devereux's, or one more
-likely to last?  The broadest ocean in the world guarded him; the place
-of his retreat had never been discovered.  The people adored him, the
-arms of a great love enfolded him; and he was glad to stay.  What better
-ramparts could life have built for his defence?  But fate, the old
-destroyer, willed it otherwise; and he was sent back to us, to an
-unbelieving world--to point some obscure moral, I suppose, perhaps in an
-attempt to show up all the hollowness and unreality ... if we only had
-the eyes to see.
-
-"They had saved the whaleboat, of course; Devereux used to cruise about
-the island in her, catching wonderful fish, for he was a sailor at
-heart, and couldn't keep off the water.  One day something led him far
-off shore--a speck on the horizon, which he'd no sooner seen than he
-wished to investigate.  It looked like a piece of wreckage, or a boat;
-he became suddenly excited to think of finding traces of his fellow-men.
-Thus the devil with a memory lured him to destruction.  The object was
-farther away than he had at first realized; it continued for a long
-while to look like a boat with a man's figure propped up in one end.
-But when he finally came up to it, he found nothing more interesting
-than a tree floating half submerged with a huge root that indeed
-resembled, even at close range, the fancy his mind had created.
-
-"About this time it fell flat calm; he noticed a heavy squall gathering
-on the eastern horizon. He took down the sail and started to row with
-two short oars which he carried for an emergency. But four or five miles
-lay between him and the island; before he'd covered a third of the
-distance, the squall met him head on.
-
-"It was one of those savage arch-squalls that occur on the fringe of the
-trade winds once or twice in the course of a year.  The island lay to
-windward of him; he didn't set the sail, of course, for he would have
-been unable to do anything but run before it.  In fact, there was
-nothing left but to try to keep her head in the wind with the two short
-oars.  The squall became more violent; a short choppy sea sprang up as
-if by magic, and spray flew from the wave-tops in blinding sheets. At
-last he had to give it up.  He managed to save the oars; with one of
-them in his hand he scrambled aft.  The boat sped around like a chip as
-his weight settled in the stern.  Then she gathered headway, and he
-began to steer, running away from the island.  Darkness was falling; he
-couldn't see how fast he was dropping the land.  But his sailor's
-instinct told him all about it.  As night closed in, he realized the
-worst; he and the whaleboat were being blown to sea.
-
-"It seemed as if the squall would never end. The gale rushed at him for
-hours, a veritable hurricane of wind, accompanied by a deluge of warm
-rain.  He was badly frightened, not so much for his physical safety as
-on account of his imagination.  He says that during those long hours of
-tumult and darkness, a premonition of doom became as real to his fancy
-as if an actual spirit, an embodiment of disaster, had settled down out
-of the night to keep him company. He didn't feel alone--fate sailed with
-him.
-
-"In the morning, the island had, of course, disappeared.  The squall had
-at length passed over; the sea grew calm, and the hot sun burned down on
-the water.  It remained calm all day, so that he couldn't use the sail.
-He rowed the heavy boat until his hands could barely touch the oars,
-steering as best he knew how by the sun. He had no compass, and his idea
-of the direction of the island was vague; the squall, he thought, had
-struck him from about E.S.E., but he couldn't be certain.  It might have
-veered a point or two in the night, blowing him off at a new angle.  And
-what did it matter?--for he couldn't pick out the points of the compass
-with the wind gone and the sun directly overhead.  A horrible fear
-oppressed him that with all his frantic pulling he was shaping a course
-past the island.  But which side--which side?  As the day wore on, with
-no land appearing, this fear became a certainty.
-
-"The second night was terrible; he had begun to comprehend the immensity
-of the ocean.  He was lost on the Pacific.  Nothing but a miracle of
-miracles would lead him back to the island. In his mind's eyes he saw a
-chart of the region; a dot marked the island, a smaller dot his present
-position--the rest was a waste of waters. Thousands of lines radiated
-from the smaller dot; these were the possible directions in which he
-might steer.  Only three or four of them approached the island; the rest
-led nowhere.
-
-"He remembered that he was far from the track of vessels.  Not that he
-wanted to return to the world, but a vessel might help him to find the
-island.  He was too full of life to want to die.... Scenes of the island
-crossed his mind with poignant intensity.  They would be searching for
-him in their frail dug-out canoes.  The women would be wailing behind
-the village. Would his love believe that he had left her? No, he felt
-her faith, across the silence.  In fancy, he saw her standing at the
-head of the beach, where she had first appeared to him.  But her face
-now was drawn in wild sorrow, her streaming eyes ranged the horizon as
-if she would pierce the veil of death.  He cried out to her; but the
-vast cavern of the sky swallowed his words.
-
-"It would have been merciful to kill him there in the boat; hunger and
-thirst of the body are nothing, are soon over with.  But think of the
-surpassing cruelty of saving him!  Great pains were taken to that end;
-winds were manipulated, a ship was selected and driven from her course;
-it was as if the elements had conspired together and the whole machinery
-of the universe had paused a moment for the consummation of the act.  On
-a certain morning he was sighted from the quarter-deck of the
-_Vanguard_; an hour later he was picked up, half dead from thirst, and
-babbling of an island--as mad as a hatter, of course, since the nearest
-land was the Marquesas, five hundred miles away"
-
-
-
-
-                                 *III*
-
-
-"I've often tried to imagine Devereux's outlook on life, as he begged
-the captain of the _Vanguard_ that morning to turn his ship about and
-institute a search for an uncharted island.  How the refusal must have
-stunned him, with the reality still a living presence in his heart.  By
-Jove, you know, the smell of the land lingered in his nostrils as if
-he'd just that moment left it; he could hear the voices, could feel the
-touch of lips that were barely parted from his....  But they were rough
-and practical on board the _Vanguard_; they had to be, for weren't they
-sailing in the employment of a strictly ordered enterprise?  They
-laughed at him, and held their course.  It was then that he began to
-hate a world that wouldn't listen.  He's used to it now; like the
-savages, he has learned his lesson. And his interpretation of it is
-accepted only as a further indication of his madness.  He says simply
-that we have lost our souls.
-
-"On the top of this, came the experience in San Francisco.  To have his
-hopes raised so high, only to be shattered overnight when public
-interest threw down the new plaything, was the final stroke of
-disillusionment.  He went back to the sea; this was his only means of
-livelihood, and in spite of the romantic hallucination he remained a
-good sailor.  The ship on which he sailed from San Francisco took him
-south through the Pacific, along the route of homeward bound vessels.
-This, of all Pacific sailing routes, strikes nearest to the region where
-Devereux had been lost and found.  But it doesn't run quite far enough
-to the westward actually to cross it. Devereux went to the captain, told
-him straight-forwardly the inwardness of his trouble and adventure, and
-begged him to shift the course a little--just to run to leeward, so that
-they might strike the longitude of the place.  He didn't ask to waste
-any time in search.  But the captain, who'd heard about his mate before
-he shipped him, saw nothing in this but a mild outcropping of the
-madness, and of course couldn't listen to the appeal.  Running a ship to
-leeward was a matter of dollars and cents....  So they drew near the
-island, passed it a few hundred miles away, and left it astern as they
-picked up the southeast trades.
-
-"This was the first of many voyages; he remained in the San Francisco
-trade for several years.  Half a dozen times he passed the island,
-always leaving it far to leeward; and the memory didn't grow cold.
-Rather, it burned warmer and higher under this harrowing tantalization,
-a flame fed by hope and clarified by love.  Some time, if he waited
-patiently, the elements would be propitious, the right chance would
-come.
-
-"But he, too, became practical about it, recognizing that until he was
-his own master he wouldn't be free to seize a chance if it came his way.
-He saved his money, and worked hard to advance his reputation.  In due
-time he was rewarded with the command of a little barque. For a number
-of voyages his owners sent him to the China Sea; it was at this time
-that I first met him, to fall under the spell of his romantic destiny.
-At last, however, he arrived in Singapore one voyage to learn that he'd
-been chartered to carry coals from Newcastle, New South Wales, to San
-Francisco.  He felt a wonderful elation at the news.  It looked like his
-long-awaited opportunity.
-
-"In the natural order of things, you know, on the passage from Newcastle
-to California, he would cross the Pacific in the westerlies below the
-southeast trades, strike north through the trade winds close hauled on
-the starboard tack, fetch within a reasonable distance of the coast of
-Mexico, pick up the northeast trades there, and take a weatherly
-departure for the last stage of the journey.  By crossing the equator in
-135 deg. west longitude he would be thrown to leeward heavily on that
-last stage.  But he must chance it; no one would know, and he could make
-his easting in the North Pacific, above the trades. Chance it?--he
-couldn't have failed to accept the opening, his whole life was centred
-on the play. God knows, he'd waited long enough, devotedly enough, for
-deliverance from this protracted anguish, for the resumption of
-happiness, for another glimpse of the form of love and beauty, for a
-sight of the island that more and more appeared to him in the nature of
-a vivid dream.
-
-"And, by Jove, when he got there, he couldn't find it!  It didn't seem,
-to be in existence any longer; at least, it wasn't to be discovered in
-the region where he had expected to come across it. He couldn't remember
-the exact latitude and longitude, you'll remember, although he had an
-approximate position which ought to have served the purpose.  He cruised
-in the locality for over a week, backward and forward, around and
-around, combing every square mile of its waters; but he saw no sign of
-land.  He had a terrible feeling that he might have passed it by night,
-that if the night could have been turned to day he might have caught a
-glimpse of it on the distant horizon.  It was at night, he says, that
-the sense of its nearness was most acute, an ethereal presence lying all
-about him in the soft, impenetrable obscurity.  At times he could almost
-smell the land.  He felt that she, too, had remembered, and had remained
-faithful to him; that the pain and longing in her heart hung in
-mysterious vibrations about the island, to guide him to her if ever he
-came that way.  But, as of old, he couldn't tell the direction; it was
-always his bitter fate to lack a compass at the crises of life.  He
-didn't find either the island or the rock that had split the _Evening
-Star_; and in the end he had to go away.
-
-"He tried again, some years later, but with the same lack of success.  I
-have an idea that his latitude and longitude were away off; yet the
-place where he had been picked up was exact enough.  Or perhaps ... But
-what's the use of speculating on a hypothesis without tangible grounds?
-He couldn't find the island.  _He_ is the story--as you see him over
-there.
-
-"By this time a hopeless melancholy had settled on him; yet he persisted
-in what he conceived to be the main business of life.  His faith,
-indeed, was unquestioning; he apparently couldn't have done otherwise,
-and all his days and designs arranged themselves around this central
-purpose as naturally as mists rise to the sun.  He left the sea, and
-went into the pearl fishing enterprise down on the north coast of
-Australia.  He wanted to make money--and he made it.  As soon as he
-possessed the means, he bought a schooner, fitted her up for a year's
-cruise, and disappeared over the eastern rim of the Pacific.  It was
-well over a year, in fact, before he turned up again.
-
-"I happened to be in Singapore when he arrived from that first cruise.
-Going down the Jetty late one afternoon to lake my sampan, I met him
-wandering in the opposite direction.  One look at his face told me that
-he'd failed again. He had come in at noon, wasn't going anywhere, didn't
-know what he wanted to do.  I took him aboard with me to supper, and we
-had a long evening on deck under the awning.
-
-"'Devereux, has it ever occurred to you that the island may have sunk in
-a volcanic disturbance?' I suggested, after he'd gone over the affair
-for the twentieth time.
-
-"The idea gave him comfort, strange as it may seem; he could contemplate
-the entire destruction of his beloved as an event of minor importance.
-It offered something to fall back on, in his mental agony; a practical
-explanation to dull the edge of the frantic feeling that all the while
-the island existed, if he could only find it.  When I noted how he
-devoured the suggestion, I enlarged on its possibility.
-
-"'You see, you haven't been able to find the rock, either' I pointed out
-'And I remember you told me there wasn't any coral formation in the
-neighbourhood of that rock.  A sure sign of recent volcanic activity.
-I'd be willing to bet that it hadn't been on the surface very long; it
-had been poked up recently for your especial benefit.  And where
-volcanic action is busy poking things up, it's just as liable to sink
-them down again'
-
-"'But the island had been there a long while' he objected  'It had a
-coral reef all the way round; our boat crossed it by a miracle that
-morning.  And the people, Nichols--people don't rise full grown from the
-sea, or drop down out of the air'
-
-"I wondered whether they didn't, in this case. 'Never mind, this was the
-way of it' said I  'The rock was an indication of volcanic action that
-hadn't yet extended to the island.  But the whole area was in danger,
-and the next outbreak, which happened to be one of depression, dragged
-down the island, too'
-
-"We left the question pending, and went our various ways.  Now and then
-I'd run into him, wandering about the world, as the years went by. He's
-never wholly given up the search.  The singular thing about it is that
-material fortune has fairly pursued him.  He's made a lot of money, and
-sunk it all in fruitless expeditions.  Too bad it is that he didn't
-possess a scientific bent; he knows all there is to know of the Pacific
-islands on their practical side--that is, on the side that isn't worth
-knowing"
-
-Nichols struck the table again.  "Well, what do you think of it?" he
-demanded "There he goes, now--alone, always alone.  Why was he sent back
-to us?  What's his obscure moral? Do you get any hint?"
-
-"Nichols, do you yourself believe in the reality of this island?" I
-asked.
-
-He glanced at me keenly.  "Isn't that wholly beside the point?" said he
-"I don't believe the island exists to-day, if that is what you mean.
-But there's a year in an open boat, back at the beginning of the record,
-to be explained.  The point is that he believes in the island.  By Jove,
-he remembers it--do you understand?  See that droop in his back, as he
-stands absently looking out of the door?  He's growing old, and the
-woman would be past middle age to-day, and the boy would be a man; but
-they have a trick of remaining young in his memory.  Oh, he faces the
-fact, of course, in his practical moments; wonders what they have come
-to, whether the boy ever matured, whether the woman waited, or gave him
-up for lost and married another man.  He can speak about these things,
-because he's quite determined to believe that the island is sunk under
-the ocean, that they're all dead.  But when the moon's out, and he gets
-to dreaming, they come back to him just as he left them, a young and
-beautiful woman with a child at her breast, both of them perfectly
-alive.  How can you ask me ... whether I believe in the island?"
-
-
-
-
-                                  *IV*
-
-
-The day following this conversation, Nichols introduced me to Devereux;
-I met and talked with him several times before I left Hong Kong. If he
-was mad, the fact didn't affect his daily intercourse.  He was a man of
-charming personality; a man who held something back, of course, but this
-merely added interest to the charm.  Only his eyes were strange; as he
-talked, they invariably wandered upward, and were recalled to the scene
-in intermittent sharp flashes.
-
-Then I left Hong Kong, and forgot all about him for a couple of years.
-At the end of that time I found myself in Batavia on business, when who
-should arrive but Nichols in the barque _Omega_. I left a message for
-him at his broker's, and that evening he called on me at the hotel.
-Already, I had determined to ask him for a passage north.
-
-"But it'll take me a couple of months to reach Hong Kong" he told me
-"I'm going from here to Macassar, then on up the straights to Cebu and
-Iloilo"
-
-"Time is no object to me" I answered.
-
-"Good" said he  "I'll be glad enough of your company.  I have one
-passenger already, but he's hardly exhilarating.  It's Devereux--you
-remember him.  The fellow who lost an island in the Pacific"
-
-"Yes, indeed.  How is he now?"
-
-"He's in bad shape" said Nichols, tapping his head significantly  "I've
-had him aboard the round trip, for his health, but it hasn't seemed to
-help him.  I'm afraid he is really breaking up, this time"
-
-So it was arranged that I accompany Nichols northward.  I went off on
-board with him that night, to enjoy the fresh sea-breeze in the outer
-roads.  There I renewed my acquaintance with Devereux in more intimate
-circumstances.
-
-The change in him was decidedly noticeable. His manner was odder, more
-distrait; throughout the evening he sat with his chair pulled close to
-the side, speaking only when spoken to, gazing off into the night and
-drumming constantly on the rail with his hand.  We sailed from Batavia
-in a couple of days.  Quite abruptly, on the morning of our departure,
-Devereux approached me with a new manner, as if anxious to enter into
-confidences. The anchor had just fetched away, the ship had begun to
-turn on her heel.  Something had moved him to the depths, some gleam of
-colour, some distant view of the palm-covered islands in the offing.  He
-stopped me in the weather alley-way, his delicate features working with
-a powerful emotion.
-
-"I've tried..." he began; then broke off for an instant, and drew
-nearer.  "You know, I hardly said good-bye" he told me impressively "I
-went off in a great hurry that morning"  He gazed at me profoundly, like
-a man looking at his own image in a mirror.  "Do you know the Pacific?"
-he suddenly demanded.
-
-"Not very well" I answered  "I've been to Honolulu, and New Caledonia.
-Nothing in between"
-
-"Oh..." he murmured  "Then I must tell you"  Without warning, he plunged
-into a relation of his own tale.  I listened politely, then curiously,
-then with growing excitement.  The tale transported him, inspired him.
-It was poetic drama, tragic and magnificent, that I heard; scene after
-scene unfolded itself before me as he talked, made real by his
-unconscious perfection of detail, and invested with truth by his air of
-fervour and simplicity.  I saw the island in bold outline, in vivid
-colouring; I felt the hunger and thirst, and tasted the water that they
-found there on the beach; I looked up with him to behold the woman of
-his dreams.  His dreams, or his memories--which was it?  Had there ever
-been an island? The question seemed never so baffling as at that moment,
-when his present madness stood so openly revealed.
-
-After this experience he retained me in his confidence--didn't want to
-talk about anything else but the vision that he saw and the sorrow that
-lay on his heart.  It was very distressing.  One morning as I came up
-the companion-way after breakfast, he plucked me nervously by the
-sleeve.
-
-"Look here" said he, leading me to windward "Nichols knows the position
-of that island.  He's trying to pass it..."
-
-"Nonsense, Devereux!" I exclaimed  "You mustn't credit such a thought.
-Nichols knows less about it than we do"
-
-"He's always poring over the chart" said Devereux darkly  "He tries to
-keep our position from me.  Oh, I can see it in his eye!"
-
-"But we aren't in that part of the world" I argued, like a man wrestling
-with the wind.
-
-He passed a hand wearily across his eye.  "It looks the same" said he.
-Suddenly he shot at me a piercing glance.  "I don't know whether to
-believe you or not!" he snarled  "You're all against me, every damned
-one of you!"
-
-He quickly dropped the mood of suspicion, however, for that evening we
-had another long talk about the island.  The next forenoon he took a
-notion to go aloft; spent a number of hours perched on the main royal
-yard.  There we could see him steadily searching the horizon.  We seized
-the opportunity to talk over his case at length in the cabin, but could
-come to no decision except to let affairs run their course.
-
-"Good Lord, Nichols, suppose he really sights an island, up there!" I
-suddenly exclaimed.  We bent over the chart, pricking off our exact
-position that morning; and breathed a sigh of relief to discover that,
-as we were going, we shouldn't sight any land till the following day.
-
-It was in Macassar that we saw the first evidence of violent abberration
-in Devereux.  The three of us had gone ashore for the day; after an
-early dinner, we were taking a short drive in the cool of the evening
-through a region of small rice and coffee plantations.  Somewhere beyond
-the outskirts of the town, a native woman stepped from the road in front
-of us to make way for our horses. She drew back against a fringe of
-bamboo trees by the roadside, stretched out her arms to part the
-branches behind her, and stood there motionless, in sharp relief against
-the sunset, watching us pass by.  Beside us, Devereux uttered a wild
-cry, some unintelligible name, and leaped from the moving vehicle.
-
-We found him prostrate at the feet of the woman, babbling in a musical,
-strange tongue. The light on his face was the very madness of joy. The
-woman shrieked, drawing back among the bamboo stems.  Nichols reassured
-her in the Bugis dialect.
-
-"Devereux, come away!" he commanded sharply  "You don't know her.  For
-God's sake, come away!"
-
-Devereux got up slowly, gazing at us in wild alarm; then held out his
-arms to the woman. She struggled farther back into the bamboo thicket.
-Again he turned to us, drew himself together, and spoke with authority
-and defiance.
-
-"She is my wife!" said he.
-
-It was pathetic and terrible--the very devil of a scene.  He fought and
-struggled; we had to take him to the carriage by main strength.  A crowd
-had gathered.  At last Devereux grew quiet.  Nichols explained as best
-he could to the woman, while half a hundred ears listened eagerly to the
-astonishing tale.  A rapid colloquy ensued; though I couldn't understand
-the words, I heard the woman's voice melt with pity.
-
-"She wants to know whether your wife had a birthmark on her bosom"
-Nichols interpreted, turning to the carriage.
-
-Devereux shook his head; he was still dazed with the struggle.  The
-woman left cover, and came close to the carriage without fear.  The
-upper part of her sarong slipped down, disclosing a broad red blotch on
-the dusky skin above her right breast.  Leaning forward, she spoke a few
-words in a soothing voice.
-
-"She says that you must be mistaken" repeated Nichols  "She says she is
-sorry--but now you have seen that it cannot be"
-
-Devereux stiffened in his seat, and the light suddenly went out of his
-eyes.  He gazed at her a moment like a rudely awakened somnambulist.
-Then he slumped in the corner, as if felled by a sharp invisible blow.
-The woman nodded to us, and we drove rapidly away.
-
-He was ill for several days after that, keeping close in his room.  When
-he was able to come on deck again, we had reached well across the
-Celebes Sea, and were about to make Sibutu Passage on the coast of
-Borneo.  We watched him anxiously that forenoon for signs of a return of
-his malady. But he'd evidently forgotten the incident in Macassar; he
-talked with us all day in a normal manner, without reference to his
-affairs.  It seemed as if the worst of the attack was over.
-
-A long, narrow island lies on the west side of Sibutu Passage, clear of
-the mainland and hiding several smaller islands behind it.  This was
-sighted while we were at dinner that noon; when we came up for our
-cigars, it stood in plain view on the lee bow.  Being an island against
-the main, with land rising behind it as we came on, we didn't think of
-it as a possible new source of excitement.  As the afternoon passed,
-however, Nichols called my attention to Devereux, who was acting
-strangely again.  For a while he would lean against the lee rail,
-talking rapidly to himself; suddenly he would leave that off and take to
-pacing the deck in short, quick turns, rubbing his hands together.  His
-eyes, it was to be noticed, kept watching the island, now less than four
-miles away.  His face worked with nervous energy.  His whole air was one
-of suppressed excitement, mingled with a certain quiet elation.
-
-"He's using that Polynesian dialect!" Nichols exclaimed in a worried
-whisper  "What can we do with him?  We must pass the island"
-
-"Can't you stop there long enough to set him ashore--convince him that
-it isn't his island?" I suggested.
-
-Nichols considered soberly, then shook his head.  "It wouldn't work"
-said he  "First place, the currents are bad, there's no harbour or
-village, and no anchorage, so far as I'm aware. Second place, would
-anything convince him? Even if there was once a real island, mightn't
-this one, in his present condition, look as good as the next to him?
-Suppose he were to insist on a hunt for the inhabitants?  We'd have to
-bring him away in the end--and that might only prolong the agony"
-
-"I guess you're right, Nichols; but what's the alternative?"
-
-"Tack ship, and stand away till night" he answered without hesitation
-"Slip through the passage under cover of darkness.  Trust to luck that
-he'll change the mood again tomorrow, and forget what he saw this
-afternoon.  We can get him to sleep somehow--drug him if necessary"
-
-"But he'll make a row at once, when you tack ship"
-
-"I suppose so.  We'll have to play him at his own game"
-
-It seemed the better plan, and Nichols acted on it immediately.
-Devereux, lost in his own sphere of unreality, didn't discover that the
-ship was coming about until the island began to change its position
-along the rail.  He watched it a moment, looked up to see the sails flat
-aback, then turned in alarm and ran toward the stern.
-
-"What are you doing?" he cried  "You can make the anchorage on this
-tack.  The cove lies just round that first point"
-
-"I know" said Nichols easily  "But it's getting late, and I am afraid of
-the reefs.  The channel is narrow, the wind's dying, the currents can't
-be trusted around that entrance.  I'm going to stand off and on all
-night, and wait for the morning"
-
-"Nonsense!" urged Devereux  "We could easily make it!  Why, Nichols, I
-know that channel like a book.  There's plenty of daylight left...."
-
-"Sorry, old fellow, but I just don't dare try it" said Nichols
-decisively, throwing into the words all the power of his normality  "You
-must remember that I have the ship on my hands"
-
-Devereux regarded him sourly, in a sort of hostile dejection.  His case
-throughout was marked by a singular docility, as if all things assumed
-an illogical aspect to him, and were to be met by circumlocutory
-methods.  "Well, I suppose your word is law" he allowed  "But its damned
-hard on me.  I've waited a good many years, Nichols, for this night"
-Without deigning to discuss the matter further, he went off down the
-companion like a sulky child.  Following him a few moments later to
-reconnoitre, I found the door of his stateroom tightly closed.
-
-He didn't appear at the supper table; as the evening passed it seemed
-evident that he wasn't coming out again.  We began to have hope of
-getting through the night without another painful scene.  When I looked
-into his room after supper and found him sound asleep in the bunk, it
-seemed too good to be true.  Nichols at once tacked ship again, and we
-stood back toward Sibutu Passage.
-
-Our plan for slipping through under cover of the darkness, however, had
-failed to reckon with the moonlight; that both of us had forgotten it is
-a good indication of the state of our minds. For the night, when it
-settled down, was positively radiant.  A great soft moon hung high in
-the heavens, flooding the sea with a subdued glare, and revealing every
-detail of the land as we came abreast of the point of the island shortly
-after midnight.  Sleep was out of the question. Nichols, of course, had
-to navigate the ship through the intricate passage.  Thus it became my
-duty to run below every little while, keeping a watch on Devereux's
-door.  But no sound or movement came from the closed room.
-
-We had already forged past the main point of the island, which lay abaft
-the lee beam, less than half a mile distant, when I started on this
-errand for the last time.  Going down the companion, I was struck by an
-uneasy feeling, and found myself hurrying through the entry.  When I
-reached the cabin, Devereux's door stood open, a black hole in the dim
-light of the swinging lamp above the chart table.  A glance into the
-room showed me that he was no longer in the bunk. I ran to the forward
-cabin door, but seeing no one out there, turned and jumped up the after
-companion on the dead run.
-
-"Have you seen Mr Devereux come on deck?" I cried to the helmsman.
-
-"No, sir"
-
-Nichols, at the stern rail, had heard my question, and ran forward to
-meet me.  "Isn't he in his room?" he asked.
-
-"No.  I can't find him anywhere in the cabin. Must have gone up the
-forward companion"
-
-Together we hurried forward along the weather alley.  Reaching the
-corner of the house, where the main deck opened before us, we made out
-two men standing to leeward of the mainmast, apparently in earnest
-conversation.  One seemed eager, excited; the other was evidently on the
-defensive.  Devereux and the mate, we saw the next instant.  It crossed
-my mind that the mate was ignorant of the intimate details of Devereux's
-malady; he wasn't the sort of fellow to take into confidential
-relations.
-
-We heard his voice, now, sharply raised, as if in a final attempt to
-quell the other's insistence.
-
-"But we aren't going to stop here, I tell you! There's nothing to stop
-for, no place to call...."
-
-"_Not going to stop?..._" Devereux repeated wildly.  He turned toward
-the rail, holding his arms stiffly outstretched in a gesture of utter
-distraction.  Who can imagine the thoughts that leaped through his brain
-at that moment, or fathom the depths of the disappointment that suddenly
-crushed his already broken mind?
-
-"Look out" cried Nichols at my elbow "Don't let him get away!"
-
-But it was already too late; Devereux had heard the warning, too, and
-accepted it as a challenge.  With a wild cry that seemed to tremble
-among the upper sails and echo back from the wooded heights of the
-island, he leaped forward, dodging the mate, and gained the bulwarks
-just abaft the fore preventor backstay. For an instant he stood there,
-silhouetted against the bright track of the moonlight, confronting the
-vision that was reality--then plunged with a magnificent abandon, and
-disappeared under the silvery surface of the water.
-
-We saw him strike out toward the island. The ship forged ahead, carrying
-the moon-track with her; before we could get out a boat, he had vanished
-in the shrouded wastes astern.  We sought for a night and a day, but
-could find no trace of his body.  In that swift current setting seaward,
-it was impossible that he could have reached the land.
-
-
-
-
-                          *SERVANT AND MASTER*
-
-
-
-                          *SERVANT AND MASTER*
-
-                                  *I*
-
-
-"Steward!"
-
-"Yes, sir, Cappen"
-
-The little old Chinaman looked up from the brass threshold that he was
-polishing.  Kneeling at the entrance to the forward cabin, with his back
-toward Captain Sheldon, he peered round his shoulder with a gnome-like
-movement, his hands pausing on the brass.
-
-Captain Sheldon laid down his book.  He pointed an accusing forefinger
-at the stateroom threshold, which the steward had just finished.
-
-"That's dirty, Wang.  You haven't half polished it.  What's the matter
-with you lately?"
-
-"All light, Cappen, all light.  Eye gettee old"
-
-He shifted his pan of brick-dust, scuttled across on his knees to the
-stateroom threshold, and attacked the brass again.  With head bent low
-and hands flying, he worked silently.  His back disclosed nothing beyond
-the familiar mechanical impersonality.
-
-Captain Sheldon watched him with narrowing eyes.  He realized that he
-was beginning to "get down on" the old steward; yet to his mind there
-was justice in the feeling.  Wang wasn't so neat or careful as he used
-to be.  He frowned as he noted the greasy collar of the Chinaman's
-tunic.  A dirty steward!--he had always abhorred the notion.  To his
-strict ideas of nautical propriety, it meant the beginning of a ship's
-disintegration.  The time was not far distant, he saw clearly, when he
-would have to get rid of old Wang.
-
-He had inherited the steward along with the ship _Retriever_ when his
-father died.  "Wang-ti, His Mark" the entry had stood voyage after
-voyage on the ship's articles; young John Sheldon had grown up taking
-the venerable Chinaman for granted.  He was the "old man's" trusted
-servant, as much a part of the vessel as her compass or her keel.  He
-took entire charge of the ship's provisioning, as well as of the cabin
-accessories.  He kept the commissary accounts, with never a penny out of
-the way; his prudence and honesty had saved the ship many a dollar.
-John often used to hear his father boast that be wouldn't be able to go
-to sea without Wang-ti.
-
-In his boyhood on shipboard, there had existed a natural intimacy
-between the captain's son and the factotum of the nautical household.
-John's mother was dead, he roamed the ship wild from forecastle to
-lazaret; and Wang had guarded his fortunes with the wise faithfulness
-that knows how to keep its attentions unobserved.  The captain had even
-permitted his son to sit in the steward's room, watching him smoke a
-temperate pipeful of opium after the noon dishes were done; this was the
-measure of his trust in the old Chinaman.
-
-Indeed, John Sheldon, had he been disposed, might have recalled a great
-deal that went on in Wang's narrow room on the port side of the forward
-cabin--incidents fraught with deep importance to boyhood.  The room was
-a place of retreat, a zone of freedom.  It made little difference
-whether Wang were there or not, the two understood each other, conversed
-only in monosyllables, and the Chinaman apparently took no interest in
-what the boy did.  In return, the boy throughout this period never so
-much as made an inquiry into Wang's life; that matter, too, was taken
-for granted.  Many an afternoon he would lie for hours on the clean,
-hard bed, his head buried in a book, while the steward sat beside him on
-a three-legged wooden stool, sewing or figuring his accounts, neither of
-them speaking a word or glancing at the other.  The click of the stone
-as the Chinaman mixed his ink, the rustle of the pages, and the faint
-creak of the wooden finish in the cabin, would mingle with the fainter
-sounds aloft and along decks as the vessel slipped quietly through the
-water.
-
-But this was long ago, before life had opened, before days of
-responsibility and authority had overlaid youthful sentiment with a hard
-veneer of efficiency.  The door of that room had closed on John Sheldon
-for the last time when he left the ship in New York, a boy of thirteen,
-to spend a few years at home in school; he was not to share another hour
-with Wang until the final hour.  When next he joined the _Retriever's_
-company, it was in the capacity of a rousing young second mate of
-seventeen, broad shouldered and full of confidence, believing that his
-place in life depended on strength and self-assertion.  He picked
-quarrels with the crew largely for the sake of fighting; he was
-aggressive and overbearing, as befitted the type of commanding officer
-that appealed to his imagination.  In him, real ability was combined
-with a physical prowess beyond the ordinary; he failed to meet the
-reverses that teach men of lesser combative powers a much-needed lesson,
-and the years conspired to develop the arbitrary side of his character.
-As an instance of this unfortunate tendency, he had allowed himself,
-after rising to the position of first mate on the _Retriever_, to
-quarrel with his father over some trifling matter of discipline; so that
-at the end of the voyage he had quitted the deck on which he had been
-brought up, and had shipped away in another vessel.
-
-It was on the voyage immediately following this incident that his father
-had died suddenly at sea, half way across the Indian Ocean on the
-passage home.  John Sheldon had arrived in New York from the West Coast
-almost in company with the _Retriever_, brought in by the mate who had
-taken his place.  The first news he heard was that his father had been
-buried at sea.  The ship was owned in the family; it seemed natural, in
-view of this stroke of destiny, that he should have her as his first
-command. The officers left, he took possession of the cabin and the
-quarterdeck that had been his father's province for so many years; and
-Wang continued his duties in the forward cabin as if nothing had
-happened.  The Chinaman had nursed Captain Sheldon when he took to his
-bed, had found him dying the next morning, had heard his last words, and
-had laid out his body for burial.
-
-Six years had passed since then.  John Sheldon was a dashing young
-shipmaster of twenty-seven; and now Wang was failing.  No doubt about
-it. The dishes weren't clean any longer; a greasy knife annoyed Captain
-Sheldon almost as much as an insult.  Lately, he had begun to notice a
-heavy, musty smell as he passed by the pantry door.  A dirty
-steward!--it wasn't to be supported, not on his ship, at any rate.
-
-The Chinaman finished the brasses, gathered up his pan and rags, and
-started for the forward cabin.  Captain Sheldon laid down his book
-again.
-
-"Steward, have you got a home?"
-
-"Oh, yes, Cappen.  I got two piecee house, Hong Kong side"
-
-Wang paused in the doorway, turning half round and steadying himself as
-the ship lurched. His fingers left a smudge on the white paint.  As if
-perceiving it, he wiped the place furtively with the corner of his
-cotton tunic, only spreading the smudge.  Captain Sheldon, watching the
-manoeuvre, sniffed in disgust, and continued the inquiry.
-
-"Have you got a wife?"
-
-"She dead, seven, eight year"
-
-"Any children?"
-
-"Oh, I got some piecee children, maybe three, four"
-
-"For God's sake, don't you know how many children you've got?"
-
-"Yes, sir, Cappen.  I got four piecee, all go 'way.  Maybe some dead.  I
-no hear"
-
-"Hm-m"  The captain knit his brows ponderously, a habit he had acquired
-in the last few years, and fixed a severe glance on the old Chinaman.
-"Don't you ever want to go home?"
-
-"Oh, no, Cappen.  Why fo' I go home?  I b'long ship side"
-
-After waiting a moment in silence for further questions, Wang realized
-that the conversation was not to be concluded this time.  He turned
-slowly and shuffled off through the forward cabin, head bent and eyes
-peering hard at the floor. Captain Sheldon did not see him stumble
-heavily against the corner of the settee.
-
-In the protection of the pantry, Wang put down the pan of brick-dust and
-stood for a long time motionless, holding the dirty rags in the other
-hand, facing the window above the dresser.  He could see the small
-square of light plainly, but the rest of the room was vague.  His tiny,
-inanimate figure, in the midst of the dim clutter of the room, expressed
-a weary relaxation; he stood like a man lost in vacant thought.  No one
-would have suspected the feelings behind the wizened face; Wang's
-countenance, as he gazed steadfastly at the square of light, was an
-expressionless blank. He seemed scarcely to breathe; the spark of life
-seemed to have sunk low within him, to have retreated in fear or
-impotence.  The hand holding the rags paused rigidly, as if petrified in
-the act of putting down its grimy burden.  Had Captain Sheldon come upon
-him at that moment, he would have ordered him shortly to get busy, begin
-to do something.
-
-All his thoughts, in the silence of the pantry, were of loyalty.  That
-uncommunicative intimacy of the past had been fruitful to one, at least,
-of the parties to the contract.  "Young Cappen" who as a boy had been
-Wang's pride and charge, was his pride and charge still.  Had not "Old
-Cappen" on his deathbed, whispered the final order "Keep an eye on the
-boy, Wang.  He's stepping high now--but the time may come when he will
-need you"  But of these words, his father's last utterance "Young
-Cappen" of course knew nothing.  They remained a profound secret between
-Wang and the dead.
-
-If it were true, Wang recognized in that unwavering gaze, that his days
-of usefulness were over, he would no longer be able to discharge this
-obligation.  Not that his strength was less; his withered, cord-like
-sinews ached to scrub and polish, to keep his domain in its old
-efficient order. But this voyage he hadn't been able to see what needed
-to be done.  He had hardly dared allow his mind to formulate the
-explanation.  But now he must face it.  He was going blind.
-
-He comprehended fully the meaning of the recent conversation in the
-after cabin.  The pain that held him inert and motionless was half of
-love and half of fear.  Perhaps, he tried to tell himself "Young Cappen"
-was now safely launched on the sea of life; perhaps he no longer had
-need of an old man's service.  Yet, in the same moment of thought, Wang
-knew that this was not the fact. The knowledge filled him with a
-desperate tenacity; until fate actually laid him low, he could not
-submit to the turn of fortune.  Old and wise in life, he realized that
-"Young Cappen's" hardest lessons still lay ahead of him.  He must serve
-as long as he was able.
-
-That night over the supper table, Captain Sheldon opened a biscuit;
-there was a dead cockroach in it.  His knife had cut it in halves. He
-threw the biscuit down in disgust.  Wang always made the cabin bread....
-Well, why didn't the old fool take it away?  He must have seen the
-incident.  Captain Sheldon knew that he was standing a few feet away in
-the pantry door.  Taking up his plate, he snapped over his shoulder
-
-"Steward!"
-
-Wang was at his elbow in an instant.  The captain thrust the biscuit
-into his trembling hand.
-
-"Look at that!  Take them all away, and bring some bread"
-
-"Yes, sir, Cappen"  The Chinaman mumbled incoherently, trying to cover
-his confusion.  His innate sense of the etiquette of human relations,
-which even after fifty years of service had not accommodated itself to
-the brusque callousness of European manners, felt bitterly outraged; no
-way had been left him to save his face.  Yet other and stronger emotions
-quickly submerged the insult. The biscuit plate rattled like a castanet
-as he set it down on the pantry dresser.  As he cut into a new loaf of
-bread, he shook his head slowly from side to side, like an animal in
-pain, stopping in the midst of the operation to bend above the offending
-biscuit and examine it closely.  He loosened the cockroach with the
-point of the bread knife; it fell to the plate, a dark spot on the white
-china. Under his breath he heaved a staccato sigh "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah"
-
-Captain Sheldon found himself unable to forget this trivial incident; he
-kept brooding over it all the evening.  At breakfast next morning it
-came to his mind again, and followed him intermittently throughout the
-day--a day of petty mishaps and annoyances, one of those days when
-everything aboard the vessel seemed to be going wrong, when even the
-best efforts of officers and men to please him resulted in misfortune,
-and the simplest words rubbed him the wrong way.  Captain Sheldon was
-nearing the end of a long and tedious passage, with nerves and temper
-badly frayed.
-
-Coming below an hour after dinner, in hope to find a little peace, he
-met the heavy odour of opium smoke floating through the cabin.  The door
-into the forward cabin had been left open. He strode out angrily; the
-steward's door was open, too.  Glancing into the stateroom, he saw the
-old Chinaman stretched on the bed, staring with glassy eyes at the
-ceiling, the pipe slipping from his fingers.  Thin wisps of opium smoke
-curled up from the bowl and drifted out into the cabin.
-
-Captain Sheldon's patience snapped suddenly. By God, this was too much!
-First, bugs in the bread; and now ... the lazy old swine, lying there in
-an opium dream, too indolent even to close the door!  The ship's
-discipline was going plumb to hell.  His authority was becoming a joke.
-A dirty steward!  By God, he wouldn't stand it any longer.
-
-"Steward!  Steward!  Wake up, there!"
-
-"What, Cappen?"
-
-By a violent effort, Wang pulled himself out of the delicious stupor and
-sat up on the edge of the bunk.  The drug had not fully overcome him; in
-a long lifetime, he had never exceeded the moderate daily pipeful that
-would put him to sleep for only half an hour.
-
-"Steward, I can't permit this any longer. You've left your door open,
-and stunk up the whole cabin with the damned stuff"
-
-"I s'pose close him, Cappen.  Maybe wind swing him open"
-
-"You didn't close it!  You don't finish anything, now-a-days.  It's got
-to stop, I tell you.  I can see what the trouble is.  This devilish
-opium is getting the best of you.  It's got to stop--and the best way to
-stop, is to begin now....  Give me all the opium you've got"
-
-"Yes, sir, Cappen"
-
-The import of the captain's words brought the old Chinaman to his senses
-with a rush.  He got up unsteadily, went to his chest, and began
-fumbling in the lower corner.  Soon he brought out a number of small
-square packages done up in Chinese paper.
-
-"Cappen, what you do with him?"
-
-Captain Sheldon snatched the packages from the steward's hand.
-
-"I'm going to throw it all overboard!  If you've got any more of the
-stuff hidden away, you're not to smoke it--do you understand?  I won't
-have such a mess in my cabin"
-
-"Cappen, no can do!"
-
-Wang was panting; a shrill note of anguish came into his voice.  He
-reached out a trembling hand toward the precious drug.
-
-"Yes, you can, and you will.  It's nothing but a nasty, degenerate
-habit.  You're too old for such things.  It's making you dirty and
-careless. Brace up, now--show that you're good for something.  You used
-to be the best steward in the fleet.  I'm only trying to help you out.
-If things were to go on like this much longer, I'd have to find a new
-steward in Hong Kong"
-
-Captain Sheldon, struggling to regain control of himself after the
-outburst of temper, stamped off through the after cabin.  Wang heard him
-go up the companion.  He sat down again on the edge of the bunk, a
-crumpled heap, inert and silent, his eyes dulled by a fear beyond any he
-had yet known.  For fifty years he had smoked daily that tiny pipeful of
-opium.  With all that life had brought him, could he summon strength for
-this new and terrible ordeal?
-
-
-
-
-                                  *II*
-
-
-Fire, like the rain, falls on the just and the unjust alike, and eats up
-a tall ship at sea as readily as it guts a splendid castle.  They were
-half way across from Luzon to the China coast, only a few hundred miles
-from Hong Kong and the end of the passage, when the blaze was discovered
-in the fore hold, already well under way.  Quickly it became
-unmanageable.  Through a day and a night of frantic effort the whole
-ship's company fought the flames, retreating aft inch by inch while
-destruction followed them relentlessly under decks. In the gleam of a
-dawn striking across a smooth sea and lighting up the pale faces
-gathered on the top of the after house, it became apparent that the ship
-was doomed.
-
-Daylight found them in the boats, standing off to watch the last lurid
-scene.  The ship burned fiercely throughout the forenoon.  At midday,
-under a blistering sun, her bows seemed suddenly to crumple and
-dissolve; surrounded by a cloud of steam, she settled forward with a
-loud hissing noise, and slowly vanished under the waters of the China
-Sea.
-
-Captain Sheldon, sitting upright in the stern of the long-boat, watched
-the scene with set jaw and snapping eyes.  It was his first disaster,
-the first time he had met destiny coming the other way.  A fierce anger,
-like the fire he had just been fighting, ran in his blood.  He was
-beside himself.  It seemed inconceivable that there was no way to bring
-his ship back out of the deep; that the very means of authority had
-vanished, that he was powerless, that the event was sealed for all time.
-He wanted to strike out blindly, hit something, crush something.
-
-Well he knew that if any blame attached to the matter, it rested on him
-alone.  For some occult reason, as it now seemed, the mate a few days
-before had broached the subject of fire, in conversation at the supper
-table.  Not that fire was to be expected; no one ever had heard of it
-with such a cargo.  Why had the mate chosen that day, of all others,
-when the captain had lost his patience with old Wang, to talk about fire
-throughout the supper period, to follow him on deck with the subject in
-the evening?  The talk had only aroused the perversity of his own
-opposition. The mate, waxing eloquent and imaginative, had at length
-succeeded in frightening himself; had wanted to take off the fore hatch
-in the dog watch, just to look into the hold.  Had he done so then, the
-fire would probably have been discovered in season to overcome it.  But
-Captain Sheldon, sarcastic and bristling with arbitrariness, had flatly
-commanded him to leave the fore hatch alone.
-
-Well, no use in crying over spilt milk.  The ship was gone.
-
-"Give way!" he shouted across the water to the mate's boat  "Keep along
-with me.  We'll strike in for the coast, and follow it down"
-
-All the afternoon they rowed silently in the broiling heat and
-mirror-like calm.  The coast of China came in sight, a range of high
-blue-grey mountains far inland.  Nearer at hand, a group of outlying
-islands appeared on the horizon. Captain Sheldon swung his course to the
-westward, heading directly into the blinding sun that by this time had
-sunk low in the western sky.
-
-In the extreme bow of the longboat sat the old steward, gazing straight
-ahead with unseeing eyes. His head was uncovered; the sun beat down on
-him without effect.  He made no movement, uttered no sound.  Alone and
-helpless, he suffered the throes of the most desperate struggle that
-human consciousness affords--the struggle of the will against the call
-of a body habituated to opium.
-
-In the latter part of the afternoon they sighted a big Chinese junk,
-close inshore against the islands.  A light breeze had begun to ruffle
-the water.  On the impulse of the moment, Captain Sheldon decided to
-board the junk and have himself carried to Hong Kong under sail.  The
-idea caught him and suited his fancy; he couldn't bear to think of
-arriving in port in open boats. Instructions were shouted to the mate's
-boat, the head of the longboat was again swung around, and a course was
-laid to intercept the brown-sailed native craft under the lee of the
-land.
-
-All this passed unnoticed by the silent figure in the bow, wandering
-blindly through a grim vale of endeavour.  As time went on, however,
-Wang seemed to realize that a change had taken place in the plan of
-their progress.  The sun no longer shone full in his face.  He glanced
-up dully, caught a vague sight of the junk, now close aboard and
-standing, to his veiled eyes, like a dark blot on the clear rim of the
-horizon; then pulled himself hastily together and made a low inquiry of
-the man at the bow oar.  The answer seemed to galvanize his tortured
-body into action.  He began to scramble aft under the moving oars.
-
-"Here, what's the trouble forward?"  Captain Sheldon tried to make out
-the cause of the commotion.
-
-"Wang wants to come aft, sir"
-
-"What for?  Shove him into the bottom of the boat"
-
-"He says he must see you, sir"
-
-"Oh, the devil ... Well, let him come.  He needn't hold up the boat for
-that"
-
-Many hands helped the old Chinaman aft.
-
-Muttering rapidly to himself, he sank into a place beside the captain.
-
-"What's that you say?" demanded Captain Sheldon  "What are you trying to
-hatch up now?"
-
-Wang made a vague beckoning gesture in the captain's face.  Behind all
-that floated wildly through his mind, stood the fixed thought that he
-must not shame "Young Cappen" by openly imparting information.
-
-"Are you sick or crazy?" demanded Captain Sheldon again, bending above
-the maundering old man.
-
-"Cappen, junk he no good!" whispered Wang feverishly  "No can do,
-Cappen!  Must go 'way, chop-chop.  Night come soon.  Maybe no see"
-
-Captain Sheldon gave a loud laugh.  He spoke for all to hear.
-
-"What damned nonsense have you got into your head now?"
-
-"No, sir, Cappen.  Look-see!"  Wang grasped the other's arm with frantic
-strength, pulling him down  "You no savvy him, Cappen.  Killee quick, no
-good!  You no wanchee him.  Go Hong Kong side, chop-chop.  Night come,
-maybe can do.  Cappen, I savvy plenty what for!"
-
-"Oh, shut up, you raving old idiot!" cried Captain Sheldon, roughly.
-
-At this inopportune moment the mate, ranging alongside in his boat,
-offered a suggestion.  They were closing in with the junk now; a row of
-yellow faces peered over the side toward them, watching with narrow
-bright eyes every movement of the approaching boats.
-
-"Captain Sheldon, I don't like the looks of that crowd" said the mate
-nervously  "Hadn't we better sheer off, sir?"
-
-"No, certainly not!" shouted the angry captain.  "I suppose I'm still in
-charge here, even if the ship is gone.  Do you think I haven't any
-judgment?  By God, between a timid mate and a crazy steward....  Give
-way, boys, there's nothing to be afraid of!"
-
-The breeze had by this time died away, the junk was scarcely moving.  A
-moment later their oars rattled against the side.  Captain Sheldon
-scrambled aboard.  He gave a rapid glance along the low maindeck, but
-saw nothing to arouse his suspicion.  A man, evidently the captain of
-the craft, was advancing toward him; the crew were crowding around to
-overhear the conversation. But all this was only natural.  An ordinary
-trading junk, of course; heaven alone knew what all these native craft
-really were doing.  After a moment's scrutiny, he dismissed from his
-mind any thought that may secretly have been aroused by Wang's warning
-and the mate's unfortunate remark.
-
-"You losee ship--ha?"  The captain of the junk accosted him in good
-pidgin English.
-
-"Yes--she burned this morning.  I want you to take me to Hong Kong"
-
-Within half an hour the bargain had been struck, and they were
-comfortably established on the new deck.  The breeze had freshened, the
-junk's head had been put about, the two ship's boats trailed astern in
-single file at the end of a long line.  The _Retriever's_ company had
-partaken of a Chinese supper; many of them were spending the last hour
-of daylight in examining the queer craft, passing remarks on her strange
-nautical points, while the native crew watched their movements with
-furtive gaze.
-
-Captain Sheldon paced to and fro on the high poop deck, chewing the end
-of a cigar and ruminating on the unaccountable turns of fortune.  The
-adventure of boarding the junk had for a time broken the savage current
-of his thoughts; but now, with the affair settled and night closing in,
-the mood of anger and bitterness claimed him again with redoubled
-intensity.
-
-The mate ranged up beside him with a friendly air.  He felt the need of
-a reconciliation.
-
-"You'll be interested to hear, Captain, that old Wang has found a
-pipeful of opium"
-
-"The devil you say!  I wondered where the old rascal had disappeared to.
-How do you know?"
-
-"He's been hanging around the Chinese crew, sir, ever since we came
-aboard.  I went through their quarters down below forward a while ago,
-and there he lay in one of their bunks, dead to the world, with the pipe
-across his chest"
-
-"The useless old sot!" exclaimed Captain Sheldon  "I had made up my mind
-to get rid of him this time, anyway.  You know he has been in the
-family, so to speak.  But I don't like the idea of his going off with
-his native gang. Combined with the opium business, it looks suspicious.
-You'd better keep an eye on him.  He's got a grudge against me, you
-know, since I took away his stuff"
-
-"I guess they'll all bear watching, sir"
-
-"Oh, nonsense!  There isn't the slightest cause for alarm.  It's
-perfectly evident that this craft is a peaceful trader, and we could
-handle the whole gang of 'em if they began to make trouble.  They won't,
-though, never fear; a Chinaman is too big a coward.  This captain seems
-to be quite an intelligent fellow; I've just been having a yarn with
-him.  He has given up his room to me; well, not much of a room, nothing
-but a bunk and a door, but such as it is, it's all he has.  Funny
-quarters they have down below, like a labyrinth of passages, all leading
-nowhere.
-
-The mate laughed.  "Funny enough forward, too; a damned stinking hole,
-if you ask me, sir"
-
-While they were talking on the poop, Wang appeared on deck forward, went
-to the weather rail and sniffed a deep breath of the land breeze. He had
-had an hour's opium sleep--an hour of heaven, an hour of life again.
-Now he could command his faculties.  Blindness was no hindrance to work
-in the dark; was even an advantage, since for many months now he had
-been accustomed to feeling and groping his way. Fate had been good to
-him, at the last.  Now he possessed the strength to do what he would
-have to do.
-
-The familiar voices of the mate and the captain came to his ears, but he
-did not glance in their direction.  The least move on his part to give
-information would have been his last. He had heard enough already to
-know that the death of the whole ship's company that night was being
-actively planned, for the sake of the boats and the mysterious tin box
-that Captain Sheldon carried.
-
-
-
-
-                                 *III*
-
-
-In spite of physical exhaustion, it was nearly midnight before Captain
-Sheldon left the deck and crawled into the narrow den under the
-poop-deck that had been given up to him by the Chinese captain.  He
-could not get to sleep for a long while.  He was taking his loss very
-hard; that inflexible, proud disposition would almost have met death
-sooner than admit an error.  At length, however, he fell into a light
-and uneasy slumber.
-
-He was awakened some time later by a light touch on the arm--a touch
-that started him from sleep without alarming him into action.  A voice
-whispered softly in his ear
-
-"Cappen!  Cappen!  This b'long Wang. No makee speakee"  A firm hand was
-laid over his mouth.
-
-In the pitchy darkness of the close room, Captain Sheldon could see
-absolutely nothing. Listening intently, he heard stealthy movements
-outside the door.  On deck there was utter silence.  He became aware
-instinctively that the junk was no longer moving, that the wind had
-gone.
-
-He lay perfectly still.  The suddenness of the occasion had brought an
-unaccountable conflict of impulses and emotions.  He felt that an
-alarming crisis was in the air.  Along with this feeling came another,
-strange enough at such a time--a sense of confidence in the old steward.
-He had immediately recognized the voice in his ear. Why hadn't he jumped
-out of bed?  Why wasn't he lying there in momentary expectation of a
-knife in the ribs--why didn't he throw himself aside to avoid it?  He
-could not understand his own immobility; yet he remained quiet.
-Something in the old Chinaman's whisper held him in its command.  Pride
-had succumbed to intrinsic authority.
-
-The rapid whisper began again, panting and insistent.
-
-"Cappen, you come now.  Mus' come quick. I savvy how can do.  Maybe got
-time.  S'pose stay here, finishee chop-chop"  The hand was removed from
-his mouth, as if conscious that discretion had sufficiently been
-imposed.
-
-"What has happened, Wang?" whispered the agitated captain.
-
-"Makee killee, all samee I know"
-
-"Where's the mate?  Where's the crew?"
-
-"All go, Cappen"  Again the hand came over his mouth  "You come quick.
-Bym'by, no can do"
-
-Captain Sheldon flung the steward's arm aside and sat up wildly.  "Good
-God, let me go, Wang!  I must go out...."
-
-"Cappen, make no bobbery"
-
-"Where's my revolver?"  The captain was hunting distractedly through the
-bed.
-
-"He go, too"  The whisper took on a despairing tone.  "Cappen, s'pose
-you gotee match?"
-
-"Yes"
-
-"Makee one light"
-
-Captain Sheldon found the box and struck a match.  The tiny illumination
-filled the narrow cabin.  As the flame brightened, Wang rolled over on
-the floor, disclosing one hand held against his left breast, a hand
-holding a bloody wad of tunic against a hidden wound.  A sop of blood on
-the floor marked the spot where he had been lying.
-
-The match burned out.  Again came the painful whisper.
-
-"Maybe can do now.  Bym'by, no can do"
-
-"My God, Wang!  You're wounded!  How can we get out?  I'll carry you"
-
-"No, sir, Cappen.  I savvy way.  You feelee here, Cappen"
-
-The steward was already fumbling with his free hand at a ringbolt in the
-floor.  He guided the captain's arm to it.  Captain Sheldon grasped the
-ringbolt, pulled up a trap-door that seemed to lead into the hold.
-Letting himself over the edge, his feet found a deck not far below.  He
-stood upright in the opening, and lifted Wang bodily to the lower level.
-The old Chinaman struggled to be put down.
-
-"Wang, keep still--let me carry you"
-
-"No, sir, Cappen.  Walkee-walkee, can do. You no savvy way"
-
-Stooping and keeping an arm half around him, Captain Sheldon followed
-Wang through a shallow lazaret.  It led forward into the open hold.
-They passed beneath a hatch, where Wang drew aside in the deeper shadow,
-listening.  Not a sound came from overhead.  Again they stole forward.
-The wounded man held on indomitably, bearing his pain in a silence that
-seemed almost supernatural, as if unknown to the other he had been
-rendered invulnerable by a magic spell.  Beyond the hatch they entered a
-narrow passage-way, and came out suddenly into the junk's forecastle,
-the quarters of the Chinese crew.  A ladder led to another open hatch in
-the deck above.
-
-As they reached the foot of the ladder, a fearful yelling suddenly broke
-out toward the stern, a sound of savage anger.  Naked feet pattered on
-the deck overhead going aft.  Wang grasped the captain's arm.
-
-"S'pose breakee in door, no findee.  One minute have got!  Boat stand
-off, waitee!  Go quickee, Cappen, jump ovelboa'!"
-
-Captain Sheldon heard him with a shock of incredulity.  "The boats are
-standing off?  The crew haven't been killed?"
-
-"No, sir, Cappen.  All hand savee!  You go now"
-
-He felt the old man sag in his arms.
-
-"Wang, I can't leave you here!"
-
-"Why for, Cappen?  Wang no good. Quickee!  Makee jump!"
-
-The voice broke; the frail body crumpled and slipped to the floor.
-
-Gathering all his strength, Captain Sheldon slung the old steward's
-unconscious form over his shoulder and swarmed up the ladder.  As he
-gained the deck, a tall figure dashed between him and the rail; other
-figures were racing through the waist of the junk.  An angry chatter
-broke out at the foot of the ladder up which he had just come.
-
-Holding Wang to one side, he struck out heavily at the man who blocked
-his path, felling him to the deck.  Darkness and surprise saved the day
-for him; their quarry had appeared like a whirlwind in their very midst.
-The next instant Captain Sheldon had gained the rail, and jumped clear
-of the junk's side.  The two bodies made a loud splash that echoed
-through the calmness of the night.  As he came to the surface,
-desperately striking away from the junk and trying to keep Wang's head
-above water, he heard a shout a little distance off in the darkness, and
-the rattle of oars as the boats sprang into action.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *IV*
-
-
-The longboat was the first to reach him.  They pulled him in with his
-burden still in his arms. The mate, appearing beside them in the other
-boat, gave vent to his anxiety.
-
-"Good God, Captain Sheldon, I thought you were done for!  Why didn't you
-come, sir? Wang gave me your orders; we hauled up the boats very quietly
-as you said, and got into them, while he kept the Chinamen busy forward
-with talk.  He said you would come, sir; but we were discovered, and I
-had to sheer off.  I was afraid they'd sink the boats, sir, before we
-could do anything.  I didn't know what weapons they had. I was just
-planning an attack, sir.  Then I thought I saw them stab old Wang...."
-
-"I've got Wang" said Captain Sheldon solemnly  "They did stab him.
-Those weren't my orders--they were his.  And he's the only one to pay
-the price!"  The young captain was beginning to face a harder lesson
-than the mere loss of a vessel.
-
-"I don't understand, sir.  Wasn't it the right thing to do?"  The mate
-was completely puzzled by this new development.
-
-"Yes, yes, it was the right thing to do!" cried Captain Sheldon
-impatiently  "He was right, and I was wrong.  Now leave me alone"
-
-He bent above the shrunken form of the old steward.  Wang's eyelids
-fluttered; he was slowly regaining consciousness.
-
-"Wang, why didn't you come and tell me, in time to save all this?"
-
-The Chinaman's eyes regarded him with a stare of mingled surprise and
-affection, a stare that somehow suggested a wise and quiet amusement.
-
-"I tellee you, Cappen.  You no savvy. S'pose no savvy, no can do.  Mus'
-wait, makee savvy."
-
-It was a terrible condemnation.  Captain Sheldon ground his teeth at the
-bitter truth of it. His own obstinacy, his own evil!  Nothing that Wang
-could have said, before the thing had happened, would possibly have
-changed his mind. He had committed himself to error.  The old servant
-had been forced to save them single-handed, to retrieve his master's
-failure with his own life.
-
-Wang was muttering, as he neared the end. He was about to join "Old
-Cappen"  With a good report and a clean record.  No one could have known
-the depth of the calm that had come to that aged heart.  Even the awful
-pain of the wound had stopped, under the shock of the cool water.  He
-seemed to be drifting off into an eternal opium dream.
-
-"What is it, Wang?  Can I do anything for you?"
-
-"No, sir, Cappen.  Bym'by, finishee"
-
-He lay quiet for a moment, then plucked at the other's sleeve.
-
-"Old Cappen say, boy step high.  Look out! Maybe more-better stop,
-look-see"
-
-Captain Sheldon buried his face in his hand. Had the words come with
-lesser force, they would have infuriated him; had the advice been given
-as advice, it would have defeated its own ends. But now it came with the
-authority of death, sealed with the final service it came with the
-meaning of life, and could not be denied.
-
-
-
-
-                            *RESCUE AT SEA*
-
-
-
-                            *RESCUE AT SEA*
-
-
-When an Arctic blizzard strikes the Atlantic Coast without warning, the
-coal laden schooner that puts to sea trusting in an uncertain Providence
-catches it off to the northward of Cape Cod or down along the Jersey
-shore; and you read in your morning paper how some steamer reached her
-in the nick of time, and rescued her frozen crew as she was on the point
-of going down.
-
-But this was not always the way of it; a mechanical age has completely
-forgotten the day when steam was an innovation on the sea, when sailing
-ships were the accepted mode of travel and transportation, and when the
-details of rescue breathed a more romantic story.  It was not so many
-years ago that steamers themselves were heavily rigged, relying to a
-large extent on their canvas when the wind was favourable.  Then the
-lanes of the sea were crowded with handsome square-rigged sailing
-vessels; and your morning paper reported more often how sail had lent a
-hand to steam, than steam to sail.
-
-But let me tell it in the captain's own words.
-
-                     *      *      *      *      *
-
-I was coming home that time from Liverpool to New York in the ship
-_Pactolus_, a moderate clipper of the early seventies.  A regular run,
-it was; voyage after voyage I'd been the rounds from New York with
-general cargo to San Francisco, from San Francisco with wheat to
-Liverpool, thence home in ballast, less than a year for the complete
-circuit.  A famous course, the course that had called into being the
-extreme clipper ship, and the one on which her best and most astonishing
-records had been made.
-
-So we were flying light, in a great hurry to swing across the Western
-Ocean; for my owners had cabled that the cargo was ready and the ship
-badly needed.  A spell of dirty weather had followed us ever since
-leaving Liverpool; it had kept me on deck night and day, but I wasn't
-complaining so long as the wind hung on our tail. At length, however,
-the easterly spell seemed to have blown itself out, and a change of
-weather was imminent.  Nightfall of the day that brought us abreast of
-the Banks of Newfoundland closed in with threatening signs.  I kept the
-deck till midnight, saw the wind shift into the sout'ard, but at last
-decided that we weren't to catch a blow that night.  It was early
-autumn, a season when storms in the Atlantic aren't always dependable.
-Soon after the watch was changed I went below, leaving word to be called
-in case things took a turn.
-
-At four o'clock in the morning, when they changed the watch again, the
-mate stepped below and rapped at the cabin door.  I came out of my bunk
-all-standing, thinking at once of a change of weather and trying to feel
-it in the angle of the deck.
-
-"What's up, Mr Ridley?" I called  "Is it breezing on from the
-southeast?"
-
-"No, sir" he answered through the door "But there's a strange light on
-the weather bow, sir, a long way off.  I wish you'd come up and have a
-look at it.  I think it must be a ship afire"
-
-I dressed immediately, and went on deck.  Off about three points on the
-weather bow a big glow lit up the heavens, like an island burning
-somewhere below the horizon.  It was impossible to estimate the distance
-it was away; but only one thing could cause it, there on the broad
-Atlantic with no land nearer than five hundred miles. That thing was
-fire.  For it distinctly wasn't a natural phenomenon; all those hard
-violet rays that characterize electrical disturbances were lacking, and
-in their place were the warm tones of smoke and flame, reflected
-brightly in the low-hanging sky.
-
-I hauled the ship up as close to the wind as possible, trimmed the yards
-carefully, and found that I could just fetch the light of the
-conflagration by jamming her hard.  Before this, we had been running
-free, with the wind a couple of points abaft the beam.  Almost as soon
-as we brought her to the wind, it began to breeze on in little gusts;
-the delayed southeaster, I realized, was at last rapping at the door.
-The skysails were already furled, and under ordinary conditions I should
-now have taken in the royals; but I kept them set and let her go.  She
-was a smart vessel on the wind; the more sail she carried, up to a
-certain point, the better she liked it and the higher she would point.
-She heeled a little harder as she felt the squalls, gave a lift and a
-lunge, then found her pace and settled to it, heading directly for the
-lurid glow in the western, sky.
-
-Within an hour we were able to make out the tops of flame above the
-horizon, and saw that there must be a big vessel afire.  The flames
-flickered, appearing and vanishing behind the rim of the ocean, as if
-the world had caught ablaze and was trying to touch off the sky.  A wild
-sight, almost supernatural; it sent a chill through our hearts, and the
-whole ship's company were terribly excited.  I thought of trying to set
-the skysails, but my better judgment prevailed.  It wouldn't do to carry
-anything aloft at such a time.  In the freshening breeze the _Pactolus_
-had all the canvas she wanted, and was making an excellent run of it, as
-if she realized that time might be a matter of life and death.
-
-The burning ship, when the mate first called me, must have been about
-thirty-five miles away. At half past six we had her well in view.  She
-looked like an enormous torch dropped on a black and angry ocean; solid
-flames mounted hundreds of feet in air, illuminating a wide arc of the
-western horizon.  Long before we reached her, the fire lighted our own
-decks with a wild glare and painted our sails a hideous red.
-
-At seven o'clock, just as dawn was beginning to break, we passed a
-hundred yards to windward of her, took up a favourable position a short
-distance beyond, and swung our main yard.  She was a large three-masted
-bark-rigged steamer, a passenger vessel, I saw with increasing alarm.
-Her main and mizzen masts had already been burned away, the middle
-section of her hull was red-hot like a stove, and the sheet of solid
-flame that we'd been watching for hours rose above her with a steady
-appalling roar, as if a great bellows were blowing under her keel.
-
-It had been apparent to us from the first that nobody could be left
-aboard--nobody left alive, that is.  I felt certain, however, that if
-they had managed to get away in the boats, they'd be clinging to the
-vicinity of the disaster, in the knowledge that she would attract
-everything afloat through a radius of fifty miles or more.  Almost
-immediately, this notion was confirmed; we sighted a bright light on the
-water just astern of the steamer, then another, and in a few minutes
-three flare-ups were burning in as many boats and as many directions.
-Nothing for us to do but keep our mainyard aback and let them row to us.
-Thus fifteen or twenty minutes passed, while I was on tenterhooks over
-the ship's situation.
-
-At length, after a desperate struggle, they dragged one by one under our
-lee.  The mate had charge of getting the people aboard.  Men in the main
-channels passed a bow and stern line to each boat, others fended them
-off with boat-hooks, still others helped the castaways over the rail.
-It was a lucky chance that we reached them when we did; the three boats
-were badly overloaded, half full of water, the wind by this time was
-breezing on sharply, and the sea making up minute by minute.  They
-wouldn't have been able to keep themselves afloat another hour.
-
-The captain's boat was the first to come alongside.  I saw them pass up
-a woman with a year-old baby, then an invalid man.  Next came another
-woman, who proved to be the stewardess of the steamer; she was carrying
-a heavy parcel done up in a tablecloth, that rattled and jangled like a
-bag of doubloons.  In an overloaded boat, in half a gale of wind, she
-had salvaged the ship's tableware!  The rest of the crowd were
-indiscriminate; except for the women, of whom there weren't many, I
-couldn't tell passengers from crew.  As I stood watching at the break of
-the poop, a man with a long beard and a blanket wrapped around him came
-up to me.  He seemed half dazed; he was carrying in his hand a small
-hatchet, the blade stained with blood.
-
-"What the devil are you doing with that thing?" I demanded.
-
-"I killed the ox, sir" he answered wildly--it came over me in a flash
-that he must be the cook. "I couldn't leave him there to burn"
-
-The captain was the last man from that boat to come over the side.  I
-shook his hand, but had no time just then for conversation; a fact that
-he recognized at a glance, drawing a little way aft along the weather
-alley and leaving me alone. For everything had to be done at once, you
-know; these people saved, and my own ship looked after.  We were in a
-ticklish position. With main yard aback, and every squall heavier than
-the last, we might easily get stern-way on and that would never do.  I
-felt pretty confident of my gear aloft, but if anything carried away to
-hinder the handling of the sails, we should find ourselves in a pretty
-kettle of fish.  Above all, I kept a sharp eye on the relative position
-of the burning steamer.  Aback as we were, with so much canvas spread,
-we must, I thought, be drifting steadily down toward her; and it would
-be the end of us to run afoul of that inferno, or even to fall to
-leeward of her.  Watching closely, I soon made out that we held our
-distance from the craft, or rather, that she held her distance from us;
-incredible as it seemed, she was drifting as fast as we were.  I turned
-to her captain, calling his attention to this mystery.
-
-"Yes, I noticed it" said he  "It seems to me that the sheet of flame
-must in some way be acting like an enormous sail.  I can think of no
-other explanation"
-
-Neither could I--and I believe that he was right.  She had been
-barque-rigged, as I said, and the foremast with its heavy yards, still
-standing, kept her head three or four points off the wind, so that she
-lay in the position of running free; her sides, too, were high, caught a
-lot of wind, and gave her headway.  But the sheet of flame must have
-helped her progress.  For here we were with a ship flying light, and
-sufficient canvas spread to drive us to leeward at a rate of four or
-five knots an hour, even with the main yard holding her dead.
-
-Too much canvas, in fact; the wind had begun to come with a new weight
-and no time afforded for proper seamanship.  No time.  We had taken in
-the royals before we reached the steamer; had clewed them up, but been
-obliged to leave them hanging, we'd ranged past her so rapidly.  As we
-backed the main yard, we had let all three of the topgallant yards run
-down, and hauled down the flying jib.  All these light sails were
-threshing and pounding aloft, while the men who should have furled them
-were busy saving life in the lee channels; the jib was slatting itself
-to pieces on the end of the jibboom.  At that very moment, under
-ordinary conditions, we should have been housed down under reefed upper
-topsails.
-
-The captain of the steamer had been waiting for me to find a free
-moment.  Now he pulled up beside me.
-
-"My name is Potter, Captain Clark" said he "I just heard your mate call
-you by name.  It's needless to say anything, sir, about what you are
-doing for us"
-
-"Yes" I answered "save that for the coffee. We haven't got through the
-soup yet"
-
-He gave a short laugh.  "Speaking of grub, Captain, how about fresh
-water?  We haven't much in the boats, and we're adding a good many to
-your ship's company"
-
-"I've water enough to last a hundred men for a month" I told him  "Water
-enough for washing, and all purposes"  The iron tank below the
-main-deck, five thousand gallons, had just been filled in Liverpool.
-
-He looked at me a little incredulously. "Thank God!" said he  "I've been
-worrying about that ever since I came aboard.  Your American ships go
-well provided for"
-
-The third boat had then come alongside.  "Is this your whole outfit,
-Captain Potter?" I asked.
-
-"Good God, no!" he cried "There's another boat somewhere--if it hasn't
-gone down"
-
-"We sighted only three.  But we'll find it for you, all in due time" I
-reassured him.
-
-"It's the second mate's boat" said he  "The poor fellow was half blind
-from fighting the fire, but he insisted that he could take charge of a
-boat. He couldn't have lost her--he was no more heavily loaded than we
-were.  I expect he's been left somewhere to windward, Captain; we have
-drifted away from him.  You'd hardly believe it, but we had tough work,
-rowing our strongest, to keep up with the drift of the vessel.  My
-orders were to keep her in company as long as she burned"
-
-"Well, if your second mate is to windward, we may have difficulty in
-reaching him" I pointed out "You see how it is, sir; this will be a
-living gale inside of an hour.  But we will do everything possible.
-Wait till it grows a little lighter.  In the meantime, what about these
-boats of yours?"
-
-"I'm done with them, Captain" he answered "You can do what you like"
-
-There were two big steel lifeboats, and a smaller Whitehall boat.  "I'll
-swing the lifeboats aboard, then, and let the other go" said I  "We may
-have a fire of our own before we reach New York; and my boats would
-barely accommodate my own ship's company.  Mr. Ridley, rig a preventor
-lift on the lee main yard-arm, and hoist those two big boats aboard"
-
-My mate, I'm sorry to say, had lost his head in the excitement and
-confusion.  A fine old man, an excellent seaman, came from down Deer
-Island way; but he had outlived his usefulness, as many of us do.  He
-was running fore and aft the ship, accomplishing nothing, and chiefly
-whining about his sails being slat to pieces.
-
-Just as I gave the order to hoist in the boats, the third group of
-castaways, in charge of the steamer's boatswain, were coming over the
-rail. These men were mostly from the forecastle; for she had been
-heavily sparred, crossed a couple of royal yards, and carried fourteen
-men before the mast to handle her sails.  The boatswain was an impudent
-little Londoner, every inch a sailor, and one of your old-fashioned
-chanty-men.  He caught my eye from the maindeck, and whipped out his
-whistle.
-
-"Shall I tyke the order, Captain?" he roared through the din.
-
-"Go ahead!" I told him, waving my hand. Old Ridley hadn't heard me,
-anyway.
-
-"Aloft there, men!" cried the boatswain with a swagger, giving a long
-blow on his whistle "Here's a bloomin' deck under yer feet again, an'
-Di-vy Jones'll wyt a while longer.  D'ye hear the Old Man's orders?
-Preventor lift on the lee main yard-arm, there, and hoist in the
-bloomin' boats.  Lively now, lend a hand, my lads, an' show 'em what ye
-knows"
-
-They sprang up the ratlines like monkeys; heaven knows, a tarry rope
-must have felt good in their hands again!  In a jiffy they had rigged
-the lift, and got a sling under the first boat.  A few moments later, as
-the boat rose slowly across the rail, I heard the little Cockney's voice
-aloft, raised in a hauling chanty:
-
-    "Oh, Bony was a war-ri-or,
-      A-_way_!  Ay-_yah!_
-    A war-ri-or, a ter-ri-or,
-      Jean Fran-swar!"
-
-His men came in loudly on the chorus; their voices gave me a turn, to
-think of the vicissitudes of fortune.  For they had been snatched from
-certain death, and they knew it already.  As it happened, that tall fire
-in mid-ocean was not reported by anyone else; we were the only ship in
-all those waters to sight and come up with it. And in less than an hour
-after we had taken the last man aboard, we were stripped to three lower
-topsails, hove-to in a howling gale.
-
-Full daylight had come while they were hoisting in the boats.  We still
-lay with the main yard aback, to windward of the burning steamer; forty
-minutes, perhaps, had passed since we'd come into the wind.  In a few
-minutes more we should be ready to get under way--and no sign yet of the
-fourth boat with her load of frightened humanity.
-
-I caught a young scamp running by, a boy from home that I'd had for the
-round voyage.  "Here, you young rascal, jump aloft and see if you can
-pick up another boat anywhere" said I  "She's likely to be to windward.
-Hustle, now!  You've been nothing but trouble all the voyage; now earn
-your salt"  I knew that he had the sharpest pair of eyes aboard.
-
-He was up the mainmast in a flash, slipped past the slatting
-topgallant-sail, and reached the sky-sail yard.  In a few minutes he
-sang out
-
-"I see a boat to leeward, sir!"
-
-"Where away?"
-
-"Just abeam, beyond the steamer"
-
-I feared that his imagination had run away with him, so sent the second
-mate into the mizzen cross-trees with a pair of binoculars.  He reported
-a boat sure enough to leeward--a boat with a tiny sail set.
-
-"That accounts for it!" exclaimed Captain Potter  "I forgot that
-leg-o'-mutton sail in the second mate's boat.  But why has he used it,
-to run away from the steamer, when I ordered him to stand by her?"
-
-"I'm afraid it means that he is hard pressed" I answered  "He's had to
-run for it, in order to keep afloat.  We must fill away at once.  I hope
-we can manage to reach him in time"
-
-While we were swinging the main yard, Captain Potter stood on the after
-house, alone beside the mizzen mast, watching his burning vessel.  She
-was a splendid steamer, only a few years old.  He watched her soberly.
-I left him to himself. After we had got the _Pactolus_ off before the
-wind, with things around decks a little under control, he said good-bye
-to his command, as it were, turned aft, and took his place beside me on
-the quarterdeck.
-
-"Can you make out the boat yet from the deck?"
-
-"She's dead ahead.  They have seen her from the forecastle"
-
-We looked aloft.  Yards were groaning, gear was cracking; under full
-upper-topsails the ship swept down the wind like a racehorse, fairly
-leaping through the water.  She must have been a splendid sight to those
-poor fellows in the second mate's boat, waiting for her at the door of
-death.
-
-"You have a fine ship, sir" said Captain Potter.  "I've never seen a
-ship handled so smartly, in such a breeze and under so much sail. You
-must avail yourself of any help that my crew can give you.  My officers
-are thorough seamen, brought up under sail"
-
-"Thank you, sir--I see that they are" I answered  "But after we have
-things straightened around once more, I think we won't need any
-assistance"  My pride was up, you know, now that the affair was
-beginning to turn out so well. She was a British steamer, and these
-officers, fine young Englishmen of the best breed, ambitious and
-well-trained in the school of sailing ships, were watching me and my
-vessel with critical eyes. I'd show them what it meant to be picked up
-by a Yankee clipper.
-
-"I make this passage every year, Captain" I went on "and always carry
-extra men for it. After leaving my wheat in Liverpool, I have to get
-back to New York in the quickest possible time, to load again for
-California.  It's much like your steamer with her schedule.  With extra
-men I'm able to carry on sail a little longer, handle her in ordinary
-weather with one watch, and save the wear and tear on the crew.  The
-wear and tear comes mostly on me.  I'll have your crew to fall back on
-now, and will be able to hold my sail still longer.  A sort of reserve
-force, you know, ready to jump in an emergency"
-
-He glanced over the stern-rail, where the steamer lay blazing in our
-wake.  In falling off we had swung a wide circle around her, to escape
-the path of the sparks as they whirled down the wind; and now had left
-her a couple of miles astern.
-
-"She burns well, Captain" I observed  "That's the hottest fire I ever
-felt, or ever wanted to feel"
-
-He gave a bitter laugh.  "They loaded her especially for it" said he
-"Cotton goods, and butter, and bacon, and hams"  As if not caring to
-look at her any longer, he turned forward, mounted the steps to the top
-of the house, and took up his old position by the mizzen mast.
-
-In twenty minutes after filling away, we had reached the second mate's
-boat.  A look through the binoculars showed me that things were indeed
-in a bad way with them; there wasn't a moment to lose.  The boat seemed
-momentarily on the point of filling, while half a dozen men along her
-sides baled frantically with buckets and other utensils. A man in the
-stern sheets was waving wildly at us, as if to communicate some
-information.  I had a notion what it was; they were trying to tell us
-that they wouldn't be able to bring the boat into the wind.  I saw that
-plainly.  Captain Potter, coming hurriedly to the after end of the
-house, evidently saw it, too.
-
-"How will you pick them up, Captain?" he asked nervously.
-
-"I think we can do it without difficulty" I answered, as if such
-measures were a matter of course.  In point of fact, I had never
-executed the manoeuvre that seemed necessary in this pass, and had never
-heard of its being tried by anyone else. As we approached the boat, I
-hauled the ship well out on their starboard quarter, passed them several
-hundred yards to port and left them a quarter of a mile astern; then
-swung the ship across their course, came up to leeward of them with a
-shock and a crash, backed the main yard, lost headway, and stopped in
-exactly the right position for them to fetch our stern as they ran
-before the wind.  In other words, I cut a half circle around them and
-placed myself athwart their hawse, in the way of an old-fashioned naval
-manoeuvre.
-
-We looked down on them from the quarter-deck as they raced toward us.
-Several men seemed disabled, water was washing nearly up to her thwarts,
-but a few oars were poised in readiness, showing intelligence and
-discipline somewhere aboard.  In a moment she was on the point of our
-weather quarter, sweeping past our stern.
-
-"Round the stern!" shouted Captain Potter and I together  "Get under the
-lee, and jump for the main channels!"
-
-But they had already seized their last and only opportunity.  A smooth
-patch on the water favoured them; they made the turn nicely, let go
-their sail, and succeeded in paddling up under our quarter.
-
-"Jump while it's smooth!" I cried  "Let the boat go"
-
-My crew had by this time become expert channelsmen.  One of them caught
-the painter, others used their boathooks; and the last load of castaways
-from the steamer tumbled over the side, more dead than alive, but alive
-enough to know that they'd been saved.  The painter was cast off, the
-boat drifted clear of the quarter, filled, overturned, and was whirled
-away on the top of a breaking sea.  Safely on our decks, watching this
-symbol of elemental destruction, stood every soul of the steamer's
-company.
-
-"I really must congratulate you again!" said Captain Potter heartily
-"That was a feat of seamanship, sir.  You seem to be able to put your
-ship through the eye of a needle"
-
-"She handles nicely, doesn't she?" I agreed. As a matter of fact, I felt
-like congratulating myself; I won't deny that I had a feeling of pride,
-as well as a prayer of thankfulness for our universal good luck.  Things
-had gone without a hitch, at a time when a hitch might easily have
-called for payment in human life.
-
-So here we were, with sixty people landed suddenly on our decks; with
-whole topsails set, and a gale of wind turned loose upon us.  I'd been
-obliged to abandon the upper sails, while we were saving the first three
-boatloads; they had slat themselves to shreds before we could find time
-to furl them.  The chief thing now was to get the upper topsails in.  I
-made up my mind that we would shorten sail with our own crew.  The crowd
-from the steamer were completely fagged out; they had been fighting fire
-and the Atlantic for twenty-four hours.  I told them to go below, in the
-after cabin or the forward house, anywhere, have a smoke, and rest
-wherever they could find a chance to lie down; and instructed my steward
-to pass round a supply of dry tobacco.
-
-When they had faded away and the decks were cleared for action, Captain
-Potter approached me again.  "I hardly dare ask about provisions" he
-began  "I'm sorry to tell you that we brought very little.  The fire
-cleaned out our galley and store-rooms first of all, and we were barely
-able to save a meal or two of biscuits and canned grub"
-
-I thought a minute, making a rough estimate. "We can furnish provisions
-to go with the water, Captain" I told him.
-
-"What!--without allowance?" he cried.
-
-"Without allowance" said I  "I never liked the idea of putting people on
-an allowance; it's too much like starving yourself by degrees.  I can
-guarantee you provisions to last us for a month or six weeks, three good
-meals a day; and we can't in common fortune be out that long.  The best
-of provisions, I think you'll find"
-
-"How does it happen, sir?" he demanded.
-
-"It doesn't happen.  We're always prepared for just such an emergency.
-More than once I've met a ship short of provisions, and furnished her
-with a boatload or two.  You can't anticipate what is liable to happen;
-but a lazaret full of beef and flour and potatoes fills in almost
-anywhere"
-
-He shook his head in amazement.  "I've often heard it said that American
-ships were remarkably well-found" he observed  "But I shouldn't have
-believed a yarn like this from my best friend. Let's see, we've brought
-you three times your ordinary ship's company; and you have provisions
-and water for all hands to last longer than twice your usual run to New
-York.  Are you positive, sir?"
-
-"Positive.  Give yourself no further worry on that score"
-
-"Back there in the boats" said Captain Potter "I was thinking that, if
-God was good to us, we might be picked up by some Slavonian bark, with
-only macaroni enough aboard to take him to the Banks of Newfoundland,
-where he'd depend on catching a few codfish, and water or not according
-as it rained.  Then it would have been a case of Halifax or St. Johns,
-or else a transfer in open boats to another vessel, with more danger to
-my passengers and crew.  This, Captain, seems like a pleasant dream"
-
-There was no necessity for telling him how it really did happen.  In the
-line for which I was sailing, a captain had the fitting out of his own
-vessel, and was given practically a free hand.  I'd found that there
-were many things that I could buy cheaper and better in Liverpool; and I
-always laid in a supply of these for the round trip. Things like hams,
-and bacon, and tobacco; yes, tobacco, the best American plug at a
-shilling a pound, the same article that I would have had to pay fifty
-cents for in New York.  At Liverpool, too, we could get the finest
-French and Irish potatoes; though they wouldn't keep for the round trip,
-I used to lay in enough to last me to New York and down to the Line on
-the outward passage.  We had a ton and a half of potatoes on board that
-trip, when we sailed from Liverpool; we reached New York with half a ton
-of them left, so you can judge how short of provisions we were. Then
-there were certain things, especially flour, and canned fruits,
-vegetables and preserves of all kinds, which I could buy cheapest and
-best in San Francisco; I'd supplied the ship there with these articles,
-for the round trip, and a good half of the stock still remained.
-Butter--we had barrels of it.  In fact, we could actually have fed all
-hands of them for two or three months without allowance; but I didn't
-want to spoil the effect by overdoing it.  I let them continue to think
-that this was the accepted fashion on board of an American ship crossing
-the Western Ocean.
-
-That afternoon, when the _Pactolus_ was at last shortened down, the
-empty bolt-ropes unbent from the upper yards, and the decks cleared for
-heavy weather, the question of accommodations had to be disposed of.  We
-started with the after cabin; the woman with her baby had one spare
-stateroom, the invalid man another.  To Captain Potter I assigned a
-third spare stateroom, so that he could be by himself.  My own room,
-with double bunk, sofa, and mattresses on the floor, I gave up to the
-rest of the women passengers; the stewardess slept on the sofa in the
-after cabin, and generally looked after the ladies' quarters.
-
-This accounted for all the spare staterooms we had.  For myself, I took
-the upper bunk in the mate's room, at the same time moving the second
-mate to this room, where he and the mate, having alternate watches,
-could share the same bunk. This left the second mate's room free for the
-accommodation of the steamer's three deck officers, with two single
-bunks and a knock-down of pillows and blankets on the floor.  In the
-steward's room also there were two berths; my steward kept the lower,
-the first steward of the steamer had the upper, and her second steward
-another knock-down on the floor.
-
-In the forward house there were the galley, carpenter's shop, and sail
-room, all narrow rooms running from side to side of the house, each with
-two doors and two windows; forward of the sail room were the two
-forecastles, separated from each other by a fore-and-aft partition in
-the middle of the house, and opening forward on either side of the fore
-hatch.  I moved all of my crew into one forecastle, since my only watch
-would be sleeping at a time; and put the steamer's crew into the vacated
-one, where bunks and bed clothes were ready for them to use.  The engine
-room crowd were assigned to the carpenter's shop; the rest of the
-men-folk, a miscellaneous lot, first, second, and third class passengers
-all together, were given the sail room.
-
-We had on board quantities of second-hand burlap and old sails, rolls
-and rolls of them, to be put down under the cargo of wheat, enough to
-line the whole inside of the ship when she was loaded; these were rolled
-up in the 'tween-decks after we discharged at Liverpool, to be
-overhauled and repaired on the passage across to New York, before being
-stowed away for use again in San Francisco.  They were just what we
-needed for beds and coverings.  In the two narrow rooms in the forward
-house, spread plenty thick on the floors, they made the finest possible
-knock-downs; although they were packed in pretty tight, the men couldn't
-have been more comfortable in their own berths.
-
-Captain Potter wanted me to put them below the hatches.  We were
-ballasted with salt in the lower hold, but the 'tween-decks were clean
-and empty; she was in splendid trim for sailing, dry as a bone in heavy
-weather.  Undoubtedly, the 'tween-decks would have made a comfortable
-place for the men, with plenty of room all around. But my objection was
-a perfectly practical one. Every one of these men had saved his pipe; in
-many cases it seemed to be about all that he had saved.  Pipes had been
-going in every mouth since they'd come aboard.  And the sight of that
-burning steamer was seared into my eyes.  It gave me the shivers merely
-to think of sending all those pipes to sit on a bed of sail-cloth below
-the hatches.  Some kind of a fire was only to be expected; but a fire in
-the forward house would be the lesser of two evils.
-
-With all my care, I made a serious mistake in these arrangements; a
-mistake due to my ignorance of steamship etiquette.  I assigned the
-chief engineer to a place forward with the engine-room crowd, and paid
-him no further attention.  The status of engineers wasn't in my
-category; I thought of them, when I thought of them at all, as belonging
-to some indefinite lower region, and lumped them all together.  But I
-was careful to make the proper distinction with the deck officers, for
-this was a matter within my own province.
-
-Captain Potter gave me a broad hint that afternoon.  "My chief engineer
-is a fine man, sir" he said  "There has never been friction between us.
-He is highly thought of by the office"
-
-I received the news as something in the way of conversation; wasn't much
-interested just then in the affairs of his vessel.  What did I know of
-steamers?  I'd been brought up under sail; and a steamer to me was
-nothing but a new-fangled usurper of the ocean, a thing to be sneered
-at, and to be outsailed when possible.  It wasn't till some years
-afterwards, I remember, that I learned by accident that the chief
-engineer of a steamer was next in position to her master, above all of
-the deck officers.  The knowledge was a shock to me; I recalled Captain
-Potter's remark, realized what I'd done, and saw how nice they had been
-about it.  Even to-day, it annoys me to think of the mistake, and of the
-comment it must have caused.
-
-We lived like kings; I gave free access to the provisions, fore and aft.
-The first steward of the steamer said "I'll wait at table"  Our forward
-cabin table, hauled out to its full length, would seat fourteen people;
-he had to set it up three times for each meal, for all the passengers
-ate aft.  The second steward said "I'll wash dishes"  So he stood all
-day in the pantry, digging away at an endless job; for of course there
-weren't dishes enough to go around three whacks. The cook joined my cook
-and steward in the galley forward; among them they kept us fed. Made up
-a barrel of flour into bread every day, for one item.  By chance, I
-overheard the steamer's first officer say one evening after supper, that
-her fare at its best hadn't equalled ours.
-
-They were frank in admiration of the ship; of her equipment, her sailing
-qualities, her cleverness, dryness, and general seaworthiness; I could
-see that they were a little envious, too, of the way we handled her.  We
-had a crew of Liverpool toughs, hard men, but experienced sailors, bred
-to American ships and their ways.  They had caught the spirit of the
-game, filled the steamer's crew full of tall yarns in the dog-watch, and
-performed feats of seamanship for them on deck whenever the opportunity
-offered.  Once the excitement of that first day was over, old Ridley's
-superb knowledge of his position emerged again. My second officer was
-one of your tall, fiery down-east youths, twenty-one years old, smart as
-a steel trap and able as a whirlwind.
-
-We put the _Pactolus_ through her paces, I can assure you; carried sail
-till all was blue.  Luck sent us strong and favourable winds.  In the
-dead of night I would often see the steamer's officers, dressed and
-wandering around the decks, or gathered in a group and holding low
-conversation; the ship would be scuppers under, the deck at a dangerous
-angle, masts and yards buckling and groaning, a spread of motionless
-canvas rising aloft as hard as a board; the whole hull humming like a
-top, as she raced through the water at a fourteen-knot clip.  It made
-them nervous; they wanted to give me their advice, but being young and
-proud, they wouldn't do it.  I suppose they called me a reckless Yankee.
-But I knew my ship and trusted in my gear, knew exactly what I could do
-with them; and didn't carry away so much as a rope-yarn throughout the
-passage.
-
-Only once did I have to call on our visitors for help.  Closing in with
-Nantucket, we had run full-tilt into another southerly wind.  It wasn't
-more than half a gale, and I had kept her running under a heavy press of
-canvas.  After twelve hours had gone by, I knew that soon the wind would
-jump into the westward in a flurry, as all southeasters do in the end.
-Feeling secure, with extra men to draw on in case I got caught aback, I
-held my sail and course till the last gun was fired.  We were running
-with the wind on the port beam, under three whole topsails, whole
-mainsail and foresail, spanker, mizzen, main and foretopmast staysails,
-and inner jib.
-
-And before I knew it, I had really got caught. The wind jumped without
-warning, jumped quick and hard; one minute it was our old half-gale from
-the southward, the next minute it was a howling westerly squall.  Before
-we could possibly pay off to the northward, the ship was flat aback.
-Then it was "All hands on deck to shorten sail!" with a vengeance, the
-vessel lying down to port, the masts cracking, the shrouds slackening
-with an ominous sag, and things in general looking badly for a while.
-The officers of the steamer ran on deck feather white, feeling the ship
-go over to windward; her first mate ranged up close beside me, and kept
-glancing backward and forward from my face to the masts, as if he
-expected them to go over the side any minute and wanted to watch me when
-they fell.
-
-As soon as I'd seen that we were caught aback, I had let the three upper
-topsails come down with a run.  My crew were aloft now on fore, main and
-mizzen, furling these sails, which I couldn't afford to lose.  Neither
-could I afford to lose the mainsail or break the main yard; but at that
-moment there were no men to spare from the topsails, where the second
-mate was working like a demon; while old Ridley had all that he could do
-on deck, letting go gear and attending to the three topsail yards.  With
-every fresh puff of westerly wind, I saw the main yard bending like a
-bow; it was a big spar, over ninety feet long.  The mainsail was a new
-piece of canvas, and probably would hold; but the tack or the weather
-brace might carry away under the unequal strain, and then the yard was
-gone.
-
-"You can blow your whistle, sir" I said to the young officer who had
-been watching me so closely--they all carried whistles in their pockets,
-to call their men with.  "Take charge of that mainsail, if you please,
-and get it off her as quickly as you can"
-
-He needed no second invitation; was off in a flash, blowing a loud toot
-as he ran forward.  I heard the call answered by another whistle in the
-waist; that little Cockney boatswain had been getting anxious, too.  Out
-came the steamer's crew with a rush from their side of the forward
-house, where they'd fallen into the habit of loafing regardless of what
-went on outside.  Clew-garnets and buntlines were manned with seamanlike
-precision, the tack was started, the sheet was eased away, and in a
-remarkably short time they had smothered the big sail and hauled it up
-to the yard.
-
-But they didn't intend to leave the job half finished.  "Aloft, boys,
-and out on the yard!" cried the mate.  A moment later he sprang up the
-ratlines himself, to superintend the job; the little Cockney took the
-weather yardarm, piping a song as he perched above the water; they
-furled the sail smartly, reaching the deck along with our own men from
-the topsail yard.
-
-Captain Potter, who had come on deck in the interval, was watching his
-men with manifest pride.  I was glad that it happened so, and took
-especial pains to compliment the chief officer before all hands.  He
-blushed like a school girl, now that the emergency was over.  The little
-Cockney, however, couldn't resist a stroke of impudence.
-
-"We thanks ye, Captain" he sang out loudly "That's the w'y we does it
-aboard of a bloomin' lime-juicer"
-
-The sally brought a roar from the whole main-deck, in which I'd have
-been a stick if I hadn't joined.
-
-"What do you do with such saucy rascals?" I called to Captain Potter
-"Shall I keel-haul him, or serve him an extra pint of grog?"
-
-"Myke it a pint o' grog all around, Ol' Bo-ri-i" giggled the boatswain,
-dodging around the mast.
-
-"I would if I could, my men" I laughed "But as you know, we have no grog
-or lime-juice in a Yankee ship.  Beef and biscuit, work and wages, is
-what we sail on.  You need no grog, if that's a sample of the way you
-feel"  And I pointed aloft to the neatly furled mainsail.
-
-With stern way on, we had by this time hauled out to port, braced the
-yards sharp up, and caught the wind in the foresail and three lower
-topsails. Our visitors perhaps had saved us from a serious accident; at
-any rate, they'd demonstrated their ability.  It gave them something to
-brag about on their own account; while the effect on my crew was only to
-intensify the spirit of rivalry.  In fact, the incident brought a great
-improvement to the tone of the ship; for I had noticed during the last
-couple of days a growing animosity between the steamer's forecastle and
-ours, due to the forced inactivity of the former.
-
-On the following day the westerly breeze blew itself out; in the early
-afternoon a steamer overtook us, bound in for New York, passing about
-four miles to windward.  We were then off to the southward of Nantucket,
-having come about on the starboard tack during the night.  I set a
-string of signals "Come closer.  Have important news to communicate"
-The steamer made them out, changed her course, and ran down within
-hailing distance.  She was a German vessel, one of the first oil-tankers
-to cross the Atlantic, they told me in New York; her name was the
-_Energie_.  Her captain couldn't speak English fluently; but he had
-picked up a New York pilot somewhere on the Banks, a man who'd been
-carried to sea by another vessel in a storm.  He was the fellow who
-talked to me from the bridge, although I didn't know it at the time.
-
-"Steamer ahoy!" I hailed; "The British steamer _Santiago_ has burned at
-sea.  I have on board her entire ship's company, and am taking them to
-New York.  No one was lost, either passengers or crew.  Please report us
-all well"
-
-They held a consultation over this news on the bridge of the _Energie_.
-Soon I was hailed in a familiar South Street twang.
-
-"Captain, don't you want to be relieved of your guests?  You must be
-short of provisions"
-
-I heard Captain Potter chuckle behind me.
-
-"There's your chance to get to New York ahead of us" said I, turning to
-him.  It was a smooth day on the water, with little prospect of wind.
-
-"Do you want to be rid of us, Captain?" he asked.
-
-"No, sir" said I emphatically.
-
-"Then we'll stay aboard, if you don't mind, and reach New York when you
-do"
-
-I hailed the steamer again.  "We need no assistance, thank you.  Please
-report us all well, and inform the steamship company"
-
-The _Energie_ went on about her business, and soon passed out of sight
-ahead.  Late in the afternoon a fresh breeze sprang up unexpectedly from
-a little to the eastward of north; a breeze that was destined to carry
-us all the way to harbour.  We braced the yards around to starboard, set
-every rag of sail, and laid a course for Sandy Hook with the wind a
-couple of points free on the starboard quarter.
-
-Throughout the next day we were running along the southern shore of Long
-Island, in smooth water, the breeze still fresh and steady, every stitch
-of canvas drawing, and the ship at her best point for sailing, logging
-some fifteen knots an hour.  The days of the extreme clipper ship had
-long since gone by, at the time I'm telling of; but many a moderate
-clipper of the later years, with fuller cargo carrying capacity, but
-retaining many of the fine lines of the greyhound of the seas, and
-embodying all the best of their experience, could reel off a day's run
-that might astonish the nautical historian.  I'll never forget that
-wonderful reach in the _Pactolus_ under the lee of the Long Island
-shore.  She was a trim and lofty vessel, lean and graceful on the water;
-a cloud of canvas aloft, she heeled at a constant angle, as if moving
-through a picture, while the long curl of a wave rolled out steadily
-from her lee quarter, as she swept like a bird over the smooth sea.
-
-At three in the afternoon, a steamer was reported dead ahead, some ten
-or a dozen miles away.  Within half an hour, it was apparent that we
-were crawling up on her; and in an hour's time, we could estimate that
-we had overhauled her by something like five miles.  I had a strong
-suspicion that she was our old friend, the _Energie_, but said nothing
-about it just then.  Every one aboard was excited over the race, the
-_Santiago's_ company no less so than my own.  In fact, the young British
-officers could hardly contain themselves, wouldn't for anything have
-seen us fail to overtake her, kept running to me and suggesting this and
-that, or asking if the wind would hold.
-
-Another hour of this terrific sailing brought us near enough to read her
-name.  And she was the _Energie_, sure enough.  I thought that handsome
-young first officer of the _Santiago_ was going to fling his arms around
-me, when I took my eye from the long glass and told them the news.
-
-"Hurrah for the _Pactolus_!" he shouted, running forward and waving both
-his hands  "By Gad, they won't have the chance to report us this time!
-We'll do our own reporting"
-
-"She must be foul--although these freighters don't pretend to any speed"
-observed Captain Potter, a little concerned, I thought, for the
-reputation of steam.
-
-"She's making about ten knots" said I "And we are logging fifteen
-steady, and sixteen by spurts, when the breeze puffs a little"
-
-"You don't tell me!" he exclaimed, glancing over the side.  Then he
-looked up at the clumsy old steamer, ploughing along a quarter of a mile
-to leeward.  "By Jove, Captain, we're passing her as if she were
-standing still!"
-
-Indeed, we were; the spectacle, from a romantic point of view, was an
-inspiring one, although it must have been a jealous sight for the German
-captain.  But now we were drawing in toward the approaches to New York
-harbour; our race had been with daylight as well as with steam. For I'd
-promised myself that, by hook or crook, we would arrive that night.  I
-scanned the horizon anxiously for a pilot boat--in those days the New
-York pilot boats were small but exceptionally sea-worthy two-masted
-schooners; and at seven o'clock in the evening, with half an hour of
-daylight still remaining, caught sight of one standing toward us on the
-weather bow.  We came together rapidly.  By this time we had left the
-_Energie_ a couple of miles astern.
-
-When the pilot boat was within a mile of us, I called Mr. Ridley and the
-mate of the _Santiago_, and had a private conference with them; gave
-them instructions to place all hands in position for certain manoeuvres,
-but to keep the men out of sight behind the bulwarks.  Stepping to the
-after companionway, I sang out below "Captain Potter, ask the ladies to
-come on deck and see us take the pilot on board"  They hurried up in a
-flutter of excitement, the captain in their wake. A glance along the
-maindeck told him that something unusual was about to happen, but he
-kept his own counsel.  It's hard to educate a taciturn Britisher to new
-ways, but the constant surprise of the experience through which Captain
-Potter was passing had begun to make an impression.
-
-The pilot boat was now running down to us on the opposite tack, about
-four points on our weather bow.  She expected us, of course, to heave-to
-and wait for her.  We kept on, however, at a racing clip, making not the
-slightest movement to check our terrific progress.  To add zest to the
-game, the wind puffed substantially at that moment, sending us through
-the water with a rush really magnificent.
-
-I could see that, on board the pilot boat, they didn't know what to make
-of it.  As we drew up on them, changing the angle of their bearing, they
-shifted their course little by little, letting their craft fall off
-before the wind and following us with her nose.  In another moment she
-stood directly abeam of us, less than three hundred yards away.  With a
-gesture of dismissal, as it were, they hauled the schooner up again on
-the port tack, prepared to stand away to sea and leave us to our own
-devices.
-
-At that instant, I waved my hand, and gave a sharp order to the
-helmsman.  The men jumped from their concealment under the bulwarks; up
-went the courses like a piece of magic, down went the helm, and ship and
-main yard swung together, as if both controlled by a single turn of the
-wheel. The _Pactolus_ came into the wind with a bird-like swoop, felt
-the main yard aback, checked her pace, and stopped dead in her tracks;
-there she lay, nodding sweetly to the slight swell, the last rays of the
-setting sun striking through her sails.
-
-A shout went up from the pilot boat.  They fell off immediately, jibbed
-to the port tack, crossed our stern waving their hands, and dropped
-their skiff overboard.  In a few moments the pilot nosed up under our
-lee quarter.
-
-"Good Lord, Captain!" he cried, as he came over the rail  "What are you
-running here, a packet ship?  I haven't seen a trick like that turned
-since the days of the Black Ball Line"
-
-"I'm in a hurry to get in" I answered "and I don't want to waste time
-over it.  I have a double crew aboard to help me.  This is Captain
-Potter, pilot, of the British steamship _Santiago_, burned at sea"
-
-Later that evening we took a towboat off the lightship, and clewed up
-our sails.  I thought I'd be extravagant and have a second tug, since I
-saw another coming toward us; the wind had suddenly shifted into the
-northwest, dead ahead, and every one was anxious to get in.  A hard
-enough tow it turned out, even with two boats ahead, for the wind soon
-settled down in earnest for an old-fashioned off-shore gale.  I told our
-passengers to go to bed as usual; that all was safe now, and they would
-wake up next morning to find the ship at anchor.
-
-At three o'clock in the morning we came to off the Statue of Liberty,
-and dropped a hook into the bottom.  They had passed us through
-quarantine under extraordinary dispensation, meanwhile sending word of
-the disaster and its happy outcome up the bay ahead of us.  At daylight,
-the _Santiago's_ company hurried their biggest tugboat alongside,
-stocked with emergency provision, if you please, for they expected us to
-be half starved.  Captain Potter met the representative of his company
-at the rail; when they had talked for a while in private, I broke in on
-them.
-
-"Captain" said I "it would give us the greatest pleasure if you and your
-ship's company would stay on board and have a last breakfast with us.
-Permit me to extend the invitation to this gentleman.  Tell your tug to
-wait for you alongside until we're through"
-
-"Thank you, sir--we'll do it" he answered heartily  "Mr. Folsom, this is
-my good friend Captain Clark.  He has treated us to a reception aboard
-the _Pactolus_ unique in the annals of the Atlantic, as you'll be able
-to see for yourself when you go below.  I'll promise you as good a
-breakfast as you would find ashore"
-
-So the tugboat with her emergency provisions waited, while we enjoyed a
-hearty breakfast.  I finished as soon as possible, however, and said
-good-bye to my guests; for a tugboat from my owners had come alongside
-in the meanwhile, and I was in a hurry to get ashore.  Reaching the deck
-with my papers, I found the German tanker _Energie_ churning past us,
-bound somewhere up the East River.  She had already been discovered from
-our forecastle; all hands lined the bulwarks forward, laughing and
-jeering, waving their caps at her.
-
-At my appearance on the quarter-deck, a group of three men, led by the
-Cockney boatswain of the _Santiago_, detached themselves from the others
-forward and met me at the break of the poop.
-
-"Committee from the crew o' the _Santiago_, sir" announced the boatswain
-"We has to inform you, sir, that we votes your ship is a beauty, your
-officers is gentlemen, and yourself is a man we'd like to sail with
-whenever you're looking for a crew.  You've treated us like kings,
-sir--and we're the boys as knows when we're well treated.  We thanks ye,
-sir, from the bottom of our hearts"
-
-I was taken aback for a minute, not being a ready speechmaker: "Well,
-boys" said I at last, blinking back a tear of emotion "it's been a
-pleasure to me to be able to make you comfortable.  I can only answer
-you in the same words, in a way we all understand: if I needed a crew,
-I'd rather have you in the forecastle than any crowd I ever saw.  You
-have handled yourselves like seamen under trying circumstances.  And,
-well, I'm damned glad that I came along!"
-
-I jumped aboard the tug, then, to forestall any further demonstration.
-But as I drew away from the ship's side, Captain Potter, with Folsom
-beside him, mounted the after-house.
-
-"Now, my lads!" he cried  "Three cheers for Captain Clark!  And give
-them with a will!"
-
-They gave them.
-
-"Three cheers, now, for the good ship _Pactolus_!  And when we're cast
-adrift again, pray God she picks us up!"
-
-You could hear the cheer all over the upper harbour.  The Staten Island
-ferryboat, on her way from the Battery to St. George, changed her course
-and passed close beside us, to see what the excitement was.
-
-
-
-
-                              *UNDER SAIL*
-
-
-
-                              *UNDER SAIL*
-
-                                  *I*
-
-
-It was at the time of New England's success and prosperity on the sea
-that young Captain Bradley took the ship _Viking_ on her maiden voyage.
-In those days the building and sending forth of a ship was a community
-enterprise.  One sharp November morning, the seaport that had seen her
-keel laid down the previous winter, had watched her rise on the stocks
-through the long days of summer, and had launched her successfully in
-the early fall, turned out to bid the _Viking_ good-bye and Godspeed.
-Her crew was made up of home boys; Captain Bradley himself had been born
-and reared in the town.  He had started out before the mast at the age
-of fifteen; now, at twenty-four, he had set his foot on the top rung of
-the nautical ladder.  The town was proud of him.  It was proud of all
-its boys; but especially of one who had shown such steadiness and
-ability as young Frank Bradley, the old man Jabez Bradley's son.
-
-Perhaps Captain Bradley was a little proud of his own achievement.  He
-could look back over a clean, hard record.  In his nine years of
-seafaring he had not spared himself.  Obey, work, learn, develop
-judgment and decision, be able to handle any job or meet any emergency;
-these principles had ruled his life, the _sine qua non_ of old-fashioned
-seamanship.  The reward had come unexpectedly.  Captain Marshall, the
-leading shipowner of the town, whose fortune and influence lay behind
-the building of the _Viking_, had offered him the ship that summer as
-she stood on the stocks.
-
-"I've had my eye on you for a long time, Frank" the old man had told him
-"I knew your father before you, and you're a chip off the same block.  I
-guess you're just the man for my new ship"
-
-But young Bradley had already received too many hard knocks, had learned
-too thoroughly how to discipline himself, to be unduly puffed up over
-success that came in the course of a deserved advancement.  His real
-pride, from that moment, was in his ship.  She was the finest
-square-rigger that had ever been launched in the town, a ship of
-eighteen hundred tons, crossing three skysail yards.  Her lines were
-those of the moderate or commercial clipper.  As he looked up from the
-quarter-deck at her lofty spars that November morning, while they waited
-for the tide--at the maze of freshly tarred rigging and new manila
-running gear, at the brightly varnished yards, at the furled sails that
-stretched from yardarm to yardarm like caps of snow--a thrill of genuine
-sentiment coursed through his blood.  His ship--and he loved her
-already. Soon those white sails would be set to the breeze, soon those
-strong, slender masts would sway against the sky, bearing aloft their
-press of flattened canvas, soon those new ropes would snap and sing,
-settling into a taut network from deck to truck and from masthead to
-masthead, whose every strand would have its use and meaning.  Soon the
-ship would surge beneath him--his to control, to guide, to learn, to
-play upon, as an organist brings out the tone and volume of his
-instrument.  His trust, too, and his future; at moments like this
-responsibility weighed with crushing force.  The greater the chance, the
-greater the danger; the greater the success, the greater the failure if
-things went wrong.
-
-"I won't fail her!" he cried in a rush of emotion  "We're going on
-together, the _Viking_ and I.  By God, I'll sail her as long as she
-stays afloat.  She shall be my first and last command"
-
-Suddenly he thought of the face that would be appearing every few
-minutes, on this morning of his departure, at the southern window of a
-house in town.  He could see the house plainly, a high brick mansion
-facing the bay.  "It will be only a year" he had told her the previous
-evening "Then I'll be back, dear, and we can be married, and you can go
-to sea with me.  No more of this sailing and staying at home alone; it's
-a miserable business"
-
-She had looked up at him bravely.  "Yes, Frank, I know.  But come back
-safely.  Think what might happen in a year!"  It was the cry of the
-sailor-woman.  She had learned it from her mother--and from her father,
-who had been lost at sea with all hands on one voyage when his family
-had remained at home.
-
-An hour later, when, with all sail set, the _Viking_ had gathered
-headway before the light land-breeze, taking her first steps into the
-world, Captain Bradley went to the stern-rail and gazed back at the
-lessening town.  He stood there a long while, lost in thought.  He could
-still make out the familiar pattern of streets and houses. Home.  It
-seemed to him as if he had always been either leaving or returning.  His
-short, quick boyhood was already half-forgotten, like a snatch of
-another existence.  Five years before, his mother had died there in the
-town; he had received the news on his arrival in Singapore. His father
-had vanished in a sea tragedy long before he could remember.  No home
-for him remained, either there or here; he would have to make one.  What
-was this seafaring life, that he had now asked a young girl to share?
-Every day he heard men call it a dog's life, growl that the game wasn't
-worth the candle.  Perhaps so--but she knew all about it.  She had been
-born in a ship's cabin; she loved the sea.  And here was the _Viking_,
-young, strong and beautiful--what better?  A fierce determination swept
-over him to _make_ life worth while, even the life beyond the horizon;
-to give her a worthy gift, a home of love and happiness, all he had.
-Any life could be worth while, if full enough of love.
-
-Glancing over his shoulder, to make sure that no one observed him, for
-it would not do to give his men the materials of a jest, he leaned
-across the rail and waved his handkerchief toward the town.  She would
-expect it--would be watching with the glasses from that southern window.
-Sailor women saw the last of their grief; they didn't turn away and
-hide.
-
-"I'll try to make up for the waiting, Grace" he whispered; then swung
-forward resolutely, to face the coming years.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *II*
-
-
-Autumn returned to the old seaport, and with it the _Viking_, back from
-her first China voyage. Captain Bradley was welcomed with a hearty "well
-done"  The voyage had been prosperous; the homeward run from Hong Kong
-had been made in the remarkably fast time of eighty-two days.  Hereafter
-the _Viking_ would be a favourite among Chinese shippers.
-
-A month after his arrival, young Captain Bradley was married in the high
-house fronting the bay.  That night he and his wife left town to join
-the ship, loading in New York for Yokohama.
-
-Then began ten happy years of life.  They were the last ten years of
-American maritime prosperity, the close of the sailing ship era.
-Charters were plentiful; the _Viking_ made money. Captain Bradley found
-himself a man of means. Without question, he invested his earnings in
-ship-property; most of the transactions passed through Captain
-Marshall's hands.  Why not put his money into ships?  Ships had been his
-life and the life of five generations before him, had made him a good
-living, had taught him all he knew.  Most of his friends were doing the
-same thing.  Few there were in those days among the old shipping people,
-who saw into the next quarter-century, who realized the nature and
-magnitude of the coming change.
-
-One year, five thousand dollars went to build a new house in the home
-town.  Every captain built a new house, whether he used it or not.
-Captain Bradley's house was occupied for the length of one China voyage,
-while Mrs. Bradley remained ashore and gave birth to a son, their only
-child.  Except for this voyage, she accompanied her husband constantly
-on the sea.  She had been reared to the life of wind and wave.  In the
-_Viking's_ spacious and comfortable cabin, they made their home from
-year to year.  Their son passed his boyhood on ship-board.  He was the
-apple of his father's eye.  Captain Bradley invariably spoke of him as
-"my Frankie" with a note of pride and affection in his voice.  Sturdy
-and manly, the little boy filled the ship with the interest and activity
-of childhood.
-
-On a quiet evening in the trade winds, when Frankie had placed his
-mother's deck-chair near the weather rail and crouched beside her,
-perhaps weaving for her amusement one of the strange fancies of which
-his head was full, it seemed to Captain Bradley that life had brought
-him all that a man could desire.  A happy wife, a beautiful son, a
-splendid ship--good times, comfortable circumstances, a pleasant
-prospect: in youth he had dared to hope for such things, but had not
-expected to see the hope come true.  Now life had given him confidence.
-He would sit on the weather bitts beside them, dreaming of the future,
-of that day when their son would be grown up, when he and his wife would
-retire from the sea.
-
-But the future, in those years, after all seemed unsubstantial; Captain
-Bradley believed in enjoying the present reality.  A large share of the
-money that he earned he spent.  He spent it extravagantly, spent it with
-a flush hand.  In the China ports whither all of his charters led him,
-there were always a dozen or twenty American vessels lying in the roads.
-Lavish entertainment went the round of the fleet.  "What's a little
-money, more or less?" Captain Bradley was fond of saying.  "Times are
-good, aren't they? More will come"  He was for ever buying pieces of
-cloisonne and rare porcelain for his empty house at home, silks and
-embroideries for his wife; things to be packed away in camphor wood
-chests after she was dead.  The habit of extravagance grew upon him; he
-spent more money than he realized.
-
-In fact, from a selfish standpoint, Captain Bradley was a poor business
-man.  Seamanship was his vocation; he understood few of the ins and outs
-of a financial order founded on usury. Its sentiment and psychology he
-understood not at all; these were considerations entirely alien to him.
-To his mind, money, to be clean, had to be straightforwardly earned.
-The plain transactions of a ship's business were all he needed to know.
-A certain sum of money put into a ship would, if she were properly
-handled, yield certain dividends: a charter at so much the lump sum,
-would pay so much on the voyage.  Thus it always had been; thus, if he
-ever gave the matter a thought, he supposed it always would be.
-
-As the flush years went by, he developed into a typical sea captain of
-the old school; a man of honour, of ideals, of simple dignity and
-original thought, careless, buoyant, at times a little reckless, a stern
-disciplinarian, a wise judge of human nature, a sentimentalist at heart,
-a believer in the inherent righteousness of things, a man of sincerity
-and individuality.  Dishonesty, laziness, hypocrisy, he hated as he
-hated crime.  Inefficient men found him a hard taskmaster.  By nature
-and training he was arrogant and imperious; the instinct of command ran
-strongly in his blood.  He spoke his mind at all times; he was equally
-ready to defend his position.  His pride in his wife, in his boy, in his
-ship, in everything he loved, was enormous.  In short, he was a man
-singularly adapted to the high and responsible calling of master
-mariner--singularly ill-fitted for his coming encounter with the world.
-
-
-
-
-                                 *III*
-
-
-The first stroke fell out of a clear sky.  Captain Marshall died
-suddenly, leaving his business affairs in a bad way.  For three months,
-the town was in turmoil.  At the end of that time, it became apparent
-that the old shipowner had involved all of his own property, as well as
-that of many others, in a series of disastrous speculations.  No one
-hinted at dishonesty, but the hard fact remained.  Ship property had
-greatly fallen off in value in the last few years; this, it would seem,
-had been the immediate cause of Captain Marshall's financial stringency.
-He, too, had banked heavily on the old times.
-
-Captain Bradley arrived that year from Hong Kong, to find himself poorer
-by more than half of his modest fortune.  All of his ready money was
-gone in the wreck; what remained was a bundle of pieces of vessels,
-quarters and sixteenths and thirty-seconds.  Worst of all, the _Viking_,
-the one ship that Captain Marshall had owned outright, with the
-exception of the eighth share standing in Captain Bradley's name, would
-have to be sold by auction to satisfy the creditors. In this crisis,
-Captain Bradley's idealism overcame all other considerations.  "By God,
-I'll buy her myself!" he cried.  His friends told him that he was a
-fool; but this only heightened his determination.  He called the
-creditors together, and made them an offer.  By great exertions, he
-managed to negotiate on his various ship holdings, disposing of some at
-figures below their value, mortgaging others, selling the house, and
-finally raising sufficient money to carry out his word. It took all he
-had; but he was glad that he possessed enough property to do it.  When
-he sailed from New York on the next voyage, he was the sole owner of the
-vessel.  His confidence, momentarily shaken by the failure of one of the
-pillars of his world, had begun to return.  He realized that times were
-not what they had been; but it seemed impossible that the demand for
-sailing ships would ever wholly go by.
-
-The next few years, however, seriously undermined his assurance.
-Freights were falling rapidly, were even becoming hard to get.  One time
-he had laid her up in Hong Kong for six months, resolving to wait for a
-better figure than had been offered, and had at length been obliged to
-accept a charter that barely paid the ship's way. Steam was to blame for
-it all.  He began to hate steamers with a bitter and unreasoning hatred.
-They were driving the fine old sailing ships off the sea.
-
-Then, as suddenly as the financial crash, came the blow from which he
-never fully recovered. On the homeward passage, shortly after rounding
-the Cape of Good Hope, his wife sickened and died.  She had been ailing
-ever since they left Anjer, but he had not realized the seriousness of
-her condition.  They had already caught the trades in the South
-Atlantic; it was hopeless to think of putting back to Capetown.  He
-urged the ship with every rag of sail, trying to reach St. Helena in
-time; but the trades held light, the elements were against him.  For
-three days of nearly flat calm he paced the deck in agony, or sat beside
-his wife's bunk while she talked to him in a low voice, telling him of
-her love, of what to do when she was gone; trying to make it easy for
-him, for she knew that she was dying.  On the third day, she died in his
-arms.  That night his hair turned from black to white.  He came on deck
-the next morning an old and broken man. The wind continued light and
-uncertain, there was no chance of reaching St. Helena in time for the
-last rites; and he buried her there in the deep sea.
-
-That voyage, they had left their son at home in school.  Alone now in
-the empty cabin, Captain Bradley's thoughts were much of his boy. He
-himself could stand it, must stand it.  But how could he tell Frankie,
-his Frankie?  Night after night he paced the narrow floor below, going
-back over life, living in the past from which he had now been definitely
-cut adrift.  Perhaps he was not quite sane for the remainder of the
-passage; he could never remember clearly those weeks before his arrival.
-But always, behind every conscious thought, lay the dread of what he
-would have to tell Frankie.  This he remembered; it seemed to have been
-beaten into his brain.
-
-Then a wonderful thing happened.  He arrived home to find that the boy
-they had left behind had grown into a young man, had developed a strong
-and resolute character of his own.  He came to meet his father at the
-train; the news had reached him already.  "I did all that I could,
-Frankie" were Captain Bradley's first words, as they faced each other on
-the gloomy platform. His son looked at him steadily, fighting back the
-tears.  "I know you did, sir"  It was the son who put his arms around
-the father's shoulders; Captain Bradley had felt a strange hesitation,
-almost akin to shame or fear.  But now his heart rose for the first time
-since his wife had gone.  This was the stuff that men were made of.  His
-son.
-
-They entered the house together--the old Bradley house, where Frankie
-lived with his aunt when he was at home.  Captain Bradley greeted his
-sister, took off his hat and sat down heavily. Suddenly the boy cried
-out and fell at his father's feet, holding him by the knees, his whole
-body shaking.
-
-"My God, father, your hair is white!"
-
-"Yes, yes, Frankie.  That doesn't matter. Poor mother, poor mother!"  He
-leaned forward to hold the heaving shoulders.  For a long while they
-cried in each other's arms.
-
-As the days went by, Captain Bradley found himself depending more and
-more on the new young strength.  The two were inseparable; they seemed
-to meet on common ground.  Captain Bradley was one of those men who
-never lose their youthful outlook; while the boy was in reality older
-than his years.
-
-When the time came to sail on another voyage, Frankie insisted on
-leaving school and going away with his father.  For the next eighteen
-months they lived together on the ship, at sea and in foreign ports, and
-their intimacy grew profound. They talked, read aloud in the evenings,
-studied navigation and history, discussed the mysteries of life and
-love; side by side they stood on the quarter-deck through storm and fair
-weather, and Frankie learned the lore of seamanship at the hands of a
-past-master.  Gradually, Captain Bradley got back his grip on life.  The
-boy had renewed his courage.  He even began to dream of the future
-again--of marriage and a career for Frankie, no following the sea, but a
-safe career ashore.
-
-Then another long voyage, alone this time, for Frankie had entered
-college to tackle his education in earnest.  He had decided to become a
-civil engineer.  This voyage was in many ways a hard one for Captain
-Bradley.  Business was poor; he had a great deal of trouble with his
-crew, for only the outcasts of society could now be induced to enter the
-forecastle of a sailing ship; a succession of storms followed him, and
-at last he lost a foretopmast off the coast of Luzon. He had to face the
-fact that the _Viking_ was growing old; for several years he had been
-acutely aware that her top-hamper needed extensive overhauling.
-
-As for himself, he knew too well that he had turned the corner of life.
-The voyage dragged on to its close.  He reached the Atlantic Coast in
-the dead of winter.  Three weeks of threshing around outside in the
-teeth of northeast snowstorms and icy northwesters completed the
-disheartenment.  But at length ship and man, ice-bound and weary, passed
-in by Sandy Hook and made a harbour once more.
-
-The news that met Captain Bradley seemed too heavy to be borne.  A month
-before his arrival, when the _Viking_ had been somewhere off the
-Windward Islands, running up in the northeast trades, his son, skating
-on the river beside the college, had fallen through the ice and been
-drowned.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *IV*
-
-
-After a while, Captain Bradley gathered up the fag-ends of his life and
-started out in the _Viking_ on another voyage.  She was all he had now.
-A few more years went by, years of increasing discouragement, aimless
-and fugitive. Times were becoming very hard.  The day of China charters
-was over; steamers monopolized that business now.  The _Viking_ became a
-tramp ship, they picked up what freights they could get, and the old
-ports knew them no longer.  The vessel barely paid her way; operating
-expenses were retrenched on every hand, there was no money left for
-upkeep, and Captain Bradley saw her literally falling to pieces before
-his eyes.  But the old hull remained sound.
-
-He lived a blank life; but he continued to live, which was something.
-The old days were indeed passing, and with them the ships and the men.
-Sailors were not what they used to be; business ethics was not what it
-used to be.  He began to feel as if the very fibre of mankind had
-changed. Nothing seemed left but memory and the remnants of an
-invincible pride.  He could not realize that he had made what would be
-commonly called a mistake, in buying the _Viking_ with his last dollar.
-His philosophy did not provide the materials for such a conception.
-
-The day came when the old _Viking_ was almost the last of her race, the
-only wooden full-rigged three-masted ship to sail out of Atlantic ports.
-All her lofty companions had passed away, or had been converted into
-coal barges.  Her arrival in New York was an item of news.  This was the
-one substantial reward of Captain Bradley's declining years as a
-ship-master; he had sailed his ship beyond her era, he had flaunted her
-in the face of a new generation.  That compact made with the _Viking_ in
-her maiden hour had been no idle sentiment; it had been life's supremest
-dedication, and he had kept the vow.
-
-A few old friends remained to him, though he had made no new ones in the
-latter years.  These friends kept urging him, every voyage, to sell the
-_Viking_ for a coal barge while there was time, while even this way
-offered for the disposal of an outworn hull.  The coal companies were
-beginning to build their own barges.  The _Viking_ would still be worth
-some fifteen thousand dollars as a coal barge.  He could retire on the
-proceeds, and live in modest comfort for the rest of his days.
-
-"Never!" he invariably answered  "Do I look like a man who needs to
-retire?  She shall never be a coal barge while I live"
-
-Yet it had to come to that; perhaps he had long foreseen it, perhaps the
-vehemence of his denial was only the face of pride set against the
-inevitable.  On a certain voyage he had been obliged to run into debt,
-to fit out the vessel. The voyage netted less than nothing.  When he
-returned to New York the ship was attached for the debt.  There was no
-business in sight; the bottom had at last dropped out of the shipping
-world.  He did all that was possible, but he could not raise the money;
-he and the _Viking_ were no longer a good risk as borrowers--their
-credit was gone.  The ship was sold at auction, in equity proceedings,
-and was bid in by one of the large coal companies operating along the
-Atlantic Coast. Captain Bradley, at sixty years of age, found himself
-stranded on South Street without a penny in his pocket.  The proceeds of
-the sale had barely covered the debt.  But his honour, at any rate, was
-clear.
-
-"Another wreck for Snug Harbour" the word was passed, as he stalked out
-of the room where the transaction had been completed.  But they reckoned
-without their host.  That afternoon the _Viking_ was towed to Erie
-Basin, to be stripped for a coal barge.  At almost the same hour,
-Captain Bradley disappeared from South Street. The shipping world never
-saw him again.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *V*
-
-
-A tramp steamer, dirty and ill-kept about decks, streaked with iron-rust
-alongside, came up the bay from Sandy Hook and anchored off Quarantine.
-She had arrived from a long and wandering voyage.  When the health
-officer had left the vessel, the captain called the second mate to the
-bridge.  An old man stumbled up the steps.
-
-"Mr. Bradley, get your things together and go ashore with me.  I'll pay
-you off at once.  You old trouble-maker, you're not going to stay aboard
-the ship an hour longer"
-
-The old mate gazed at his superior officer in silence.  Tears of anger
-rose to his eyes.  He turned away to hide them, walking to the end of
-the bridge.  His cup of bitterness was running over.  Frank Bradley,
-commander on the high seas for forty years, discharged from a second
-mate's billet on a tramp steamer--discharged by an incompetent captain,
-because his incompetence had been found out.  He shut his jaws grimly,
-recalling the scene of two days before.  Out there in the fog he had
-refused to obey the captain's orders; had wrested the wheel from the
-hands of the quartermaster, had held them both off with threats of
-physical violence, while he steered the ship himself; and thus had kept
-her from running ashore on Diamond Shoal.  The captain's orders had been
-completely wrong.  He had probably said some sharp things about them; it
-had been no time for mincing words.  Touch and go--but he had saved the
-ship--saved the captain's certificate, too.
-
-He stood at the end of the bridge, staring down at the grey water.  What
-should he do now? While he struggled with himself, his eyes rose slowly,
-resting on a hulk that lay at anchor close alongside, between the
-steamer and the hills of Staten Island.  For a moment he regarded her
-with a dazed and absent concern, trying to fathom the significance of
-half-awakened sensations. Then, with a suddenness that stopped his
-throat, his heart gave a great leap of recognition.  Neither coal dust
-nor dismantlement could hide those familiar lines.  The _Viking_, his
-old ship, lay before him.
-
-A hoarse cry escaped him.  Through the dreadful pall of the latter
-years, through bitterness, shame and inertia, burst in a blinding flood
-the memory and presence of other days.  The shock passed
-instantaneously, and left him utterly changed.  Facing his old ship, he
-became once more the man her master had been.  Decision and authority
-returned to him, as they always did in a crisis; for they were
-intrinsic, in spite of life and destiny.
-
-A rowboat was passing the steamer; he hailed it sharply.  "Rowboat ahoy!
-Come alongside, and wait there for me"  He crossed the bridge with
-strong steps, stood before the captain, gazed at him steadily, until the
-eyes of the other fell.
-
-"I'll leave your dirty tramp immediately, sir. You can keep my wages--I
-don't want them. Take them and buy a book on seamanship. You'll need it
-the next time you get in shoal water"
-
-"You insolent old devil...!"
-
-"Don't touch me!"  The old man's voice was level and hard; his hands
-swung at his sides. He advanced threateningly.  "You didn't dare touch
-me at sea; don't do it now.  I..." Speechlessness overcame him.  Too
-much: it could never be put into words.  "My God!" he murmured, turning
-away "I was master of a ship before he was born"
-
-Ten minutes later, seated in the rowboat with all his worldly belongings
-stacked around him, he directed the boatman to row him aboard the
-_Viking_.  As they passed under her stern, he looked up at the
-well-remembered letters.  They were dim now; time and weather had worn
-off the gilt.  An afternoon in Hong Kong harbour came back to him; he
-recalled it vividly.  He had been coming off from shore in his sampan,
-full of news; the ship had been chartered for home.  Grace would be
-delighted.  Approaching the ship, he had overhauled her with a critical
-eye, and found no blemish in her; then, as they rounded the stern, had
-looked up at these same letters.  His Frankie had called from the rail,
-running forward to meet him at the gangway.  Time and weather--the awful
-dimming of life.  He bowed his head in his hands, and wept like a child.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *VI*
-
-
-A stroke of luck was about to befall Captain Bradley.  When he gained
-the _Viking's_ deck, he found no one in command of the barge.  Four
-frightened sailors gathered around him, taking him for their new
-captain.  Piecing together their incoherent stories, he learned that the
-captain of the barge had been killed that morning in an accident at the
-loading berth.  A hopper had broken loose, and had brained him as he
-stood beside the hatch.  The mate, a drunken rascal, had disappeared on
-shore the evening before, and the captain had not expected him to
-return.  The moment the scene of the accident had been cleaned up, they
-had towed the barge into the stream, in order to free the loading berth.
-There she lay, waiting for a new set of officers to be sent off from
-shore.
-
-When he had learned this much, a strange idea came to Captain Bradley.
-It seemed a slender chance; but a surprising energy and hope had taken
-possession of him.  He got the address of the coal company's shipping
-office, the place where these men had found their jobs; left his things
-aboard the _Viking_, gave the boatman two dollars to hurry him ashore,
-and went at once to the number on West Street where he had been told to
-apply.  Luck followed him.  He found the shipping office in a quandary
-over the _Viking's_ case; they had no waiting list of barge officers,
-the tow for Boston was to be made up that afternoon, and the barge could
-not be sent to sea without someone in command.  Captain Bradley told his
-story simply, showing papers that covered a career of nearly fifty years
-on the sea.  His dignified and authoritative presence bore out the tale.
-
-"Well, Captain Bradley" said the shipping superintendent kindly "the job
-is yours.  I guess you deserve it, sir"
-
-"Thank you"  Captain Bradley gave a wry smile  "I think I can fulfil my
-duties.  I'll try to give satisfaction, sir"
-
-He had not told them of his own relation to the _Viking_, fearing the
-injection of sentiment into a business-like application.  That afternoon
-he joined his old command, at forty dollars a month and all found.
-
-He would not have called it a stroke of luck in the other days.  How
-incredible, then, to look ahead, would have seemed the natural
-development that time had wrought.  Could he have foreseen the end that
-he was coming to, he would have blown out his brains.  But life had
-accomplished it easily and inexorably; failure had at last ground down
-the keen edge of his spirit, disappointment had rounded off the corners
-of his imperative nature.  As he stepped across the rail of the barge
-_Viking_, only a great and pathetic happiness found place in his heart.
-His fight was finished.  He had kept his pride at too terrible a cost.
-Now he gave it up, freely, gladly. Perhaps he would be allowed to die in
-peace, aboard the ship that had shared his better days.
-
-Fine old ship--life had gone hard with her, too. The lofty masts and
-spreading spars had been lopped away; nothing remained above decks but
-the three lower masts.  The decks themselves were grimy with coal dust;
-the woodwork had not seen paint for years.  How well Captain Bradley
-remembered her appearance, when, spick and span from the shipyard, the
-best production of her day, he had taken her on her maiden voyage.  It
-seemed impossible that a whole era of such intense human activity could
-so completely disappear, carrying its lore, its lessons, its origins,
-its very worth and meaning, into the oblivion of time. An economic
-empire had passed away.
-
-Dingy, battered, neglected, yet Captain Bradley loved the old
-vessel--loved her all the more for the hard knocks she had seen.  A
-sentiment that he had thought to be dead reawoke in his heart. He had
-not known, he had not dared to admit, how much he had missed her.  He
-felt as if he had come home.
-
-His duties were light.  There were on the barge four men besides
-himself.  He found time to clean her up.  After every loading or
-discharging, he would have the decks thoroughly swept and washed down,
-and all the paintwork scrubbed.  Later, out of his own pocket (he had no
-use for money now), he bought paint and freshened her appearance about
-decks; for the coal company, knowing that she would not last much
-longer, would provide nothing for upkeep.  The cabin, the scene of so
-much that was sacred to him, he scrubbed and painted with his own hands,
-spending many quiet hours over the task while the barge was towing up
-and down the coast.  It was a labour of peace and love.
-
-For a long while the matter of sails gave Captain Bradley deep concern.
-The barge was rigged on the three lower masts with fore-and-aft sails,
-to be used in an emergency, when she had broken adrift from her tow.
-Often these sails would be set to assist her progress when the wind was
-fair.  Smothered in coal dust, exposed to sun and rain, the first suit
-that had been given her as a barge was now worn out; the canvas would
-hardly hold together to be hoisted.  Not that Captain Bradley cared a
-pin for his own safety; nothing would have better pleased him than to be
-lost at sea aboard the _Viking_.  But the condition offended his sense
-of seamanship and responsibility.  It was an indecency to the old ship
-to fail to provide her with the ordinary weapons of battle; and there
-were other lives than his involved.
-
-At length, seeing that it was hopeless to expect her owners to furnish
-the barge with a new suit of sails, he began to save his money.  In a
-year's time he had laid up enough to supply them at his own expense.  It
-seemed like a touch of the old seafaring activity to be drawing up their
-specifications; he ordered thick duck and stout bolt-ropes, for this was
-to be a suit of real heavy-weather sails.  When, one afternoon under the
-coal chute at Perth Amboy, he was able to stow away this strong white
-canvas in the lazaret, together with a couple of coils of first-grade
-Manila for reeving off new sheets and halyards, he felt that he could go
-to sea again with a clear conscience.
-
-That evening he sat for a long while alone in the cabin.  The interest
-of looking over and stowing away the sails had passed; he saw the truth
-now, saw how things really stood.  Buying a suit of sails for a coal
-barge: was it for this that he had spent his hard apprenticeship, had
-learned and practised the intricate lore of the sea?  He could remember
-greater triumphs.  For two hours of grim thought he sat with hands
-clenched on the arms of the chair, facing the world's defeat without
-surrender.  In his heart of heart he knew that he had not failed.  He
-had kept respect and dignity, saved his honour, been true to himself
-through it all.
-
-He sat on into the night; the storied cabin enclosed him as if with
-loving arms; slowly, as the mood of revolt wore away, his mind drifted
-back into the old days.  He remembered how his wife used to sit there
-beside him, on evenings at sea, busy with her sewing; he remembered how
-little Frankie used to come running in. These things had happened so
-often, so naturally. But not for a long, long time....
-
-Gone with the era, gone with manhood and success, gone with the further
-use of life's endeavour.  The old man's head fell back against the
-chair; tears streamed down his cheeks and sank into his beard.
-
-"What have I done?" he cried in agony. "I cannot understand it.  What
-have I done?"
-
-
-
-
-                                 *VII*
-
-
-Two more years passed by, and winter came on.  It was the hardest winter
-in a decade along the Atlantic Coast.  Beginning in the latter part of
-November, snowstorm after snowstorm struck in from sea in quick
-succession; one of those easterly spells that, to the mariner, seems
-destined to hang on for ever.  Early in January, the wind backed for a
-few days into the northwest, and the harsh weather offered a temporary
-respite. Seizing the opportunity, three heavily laden coal barges, in
-tow of a powerful seagoing tugboat, set out from Hampton Roads bound for
-Boston. The old _Viking_ was the last barge of the string.
-
-The weather permitted them to get well outside the Capes of the
-Chesapeake; then it changed. Wisps of clouds gathered in the southern
-sky, a heavy bank loomed just above the horizon; the wind began to sing
-in the rigging with a low moaning sound.  Captain Bradley, pacing his
-quarter-deck at the tail of the tow, plainly recognised the signs.
-Another spell of easterly weather was coming on.
-
-They were already too far outside to think of turning back, and too far
-offshore to run for Sandy Hook.  Nothing for it but to push on toward
-Vineyard Haven.  The towboat was doing her best; a nasty head sea
-remained from the last storm, and began to pick up as the wind veered to
-the northward and eastward.  The barges strained at their hawsers,
-pitching and rolling incessantly.  Captain Bradley could never accustom
-himself to this motion, so different from the motion of a ship under
-sail.  It annoyed and distressed him to the core of his being.
-Together, he and the _Viking_ had once roamed the sea boldly, the man
-striking off the course, the ship leaping forward along it, bending to
-the wind, sailing free under the sun and stars.  Now they dragged about
-at the end of a hawser, engaged in a servile traffic, trailing in the
-wake of steam.
-
-Minute by minute the clouds piled up from the southward; a grey gloom
-fell on the ocean.  The wind, now settled in the northeast, rose
-steadily, lifting the sea before it.  The air grew colder, the chill of
-the coming storm.  The old ship wallowed and plunged, groaning in every
-timber. She was very low in the water; already green seas were coming
-over her bows.  Soon the night shut in, black as a cavern--and Gay Head
-light not yet in sight.
-
-At six o'clock Captain Bradley went below to put on his oilskins and
-drink a cup of tea. Coming on deck a little later, rigged for the storm,
-he paused a moment beside the binnacle, as an officer fresh from below
-always will.  In that instant, the hawser parted.  He heard no sound, he
-saw no sign; but he knew that the ship was free. The fact was
-communicated to him through the deck, through the motion of the hull.
-He sprang to the rail, and ran forward along the starboard alleyway.
-Abreast of the mainmast, he stumbled against the mate in the darkness.
-
-"Hawser's parted, sir!"
-
-"I know it.  Turn out all hands, and loose the foresail.  She's falling
-off to the westward--the wrong way.  We must wear her around on the
-other tack, and scratch offshore"
-
-"They'll be back to pick us up, Captain, as soon as they miss us"
-
-"Not if they know their duty.  It would endanger the other two barges;
-this is going to be a bad blow.  We'll have to look out for ourselves
-now"
-
-"Good Lord, sir, what can we do with this old hooker?"
-
-"Do?--everything!  Do as I say.  Up with that foresail, now, and be
-handy about it.  There was a time when you wouldn't have called her an
-old hooker!  I'll show you what she's made of"
-
-Then it was that the labour of love which Captain Bradley had expended
-on the _Viking_ bore worthy fruit.  Every block was in order, every rope
-was clear and fast in its proper pin. Unconsciously, under his training,
-the crew had acquired a measure of seamanship.  They had learned to obey
-orders, at any rate; had learned, too, to respect and trust their old
-wind-jammer commander.
-
-For the first time in many years, an emergency confronted Captain
-Bradley.  He faced it without hesitation, filled with a certain fierce
-joy, sure of his power and ability.  Almost before the ship had lost her
-towing headway, he had decided on his course.  He and the _Viking_ had
-more than once clawed off the Jersey shore in the teeth of a
-northeaster.  They could do it again.  Then, when the storm had broken,
-he would take her to New York, as if they were arriving from a China
-voyage.
-
-Before the little foresail, the ship wore around sweetly, came up to the
-wind with her nose pointed toward the broad Atlantic, and hung there
-steady and true.  The old free motion had returned to her deck, the old
-life ran along her keel. Immediately, they set the spanker, mainsail and
-jib; this was all the sail she had.  The whole area of it would hardly
-have equalled her former mainsail, dropping its solid square of canvas
-from an eighty foot mainyard; but it was enough for the purpose, and the
-_Viking_ answered to it.  The gale had struck; the ship heeled sharply,
-plunging forward on the port tack at a three-knot gait.  She made
-considerable leeway, but headed up to east-south-east. Captain Bradley
-knew that if he could drive her on this course for the next twelve
-hours, they would stand a chance of clearing the danger that lay under
-their lee.
-
-Pacing once more the quarter-deck of a ship under sail, a tempest of
-recollections beset the old man's mind.  Past voyages, dangers, storms,
-past conquests of the elements, thronged upon him at the call of an
-awakened vocation.  Adrift, now, in a long-pent flood of creative
-effort, other memories flashed before his eyes; scenes of love and
-achievement, scenes of weakness and self-indulgence, scenes of error and
-wrong.  Life had always been hard for him to live, even at its happiest;
-his high spirit had ever been in arms against itself.  He seemed
-to-night to be able to remember all of it--snatches of conversations,
-lights and colours, tones and meanings, touches of hands and the
-unspoken messages of hearts--all that had ruled his life and formed his
-character.
-
-Through these recollections constantly appeared the figures of his wife
-and child.  He thought of them deeply, tenderly, calmly.  Once, when
-they had been at sea with him, the _Viking_ had run into a cyclone off
-Mauritius; he recalled his going below in the midst of it, to reassure
-them.  "How is it, Frank?  Will it blow much harder?"  "No, dear, the
-worst has passed"  "Oh, Papa, aren't you afraid?"  "No, my son, there is
-nothing to be afraid of in the world" He had said those words--he
-laughed, now, to remember.  God had punished him well for his audacity.
-
-He was surprised to find himself thinking of these things without pain.
-A change had taken place within him, a change born of the familiar
-exigency.  In some inexplicable way, he was happy again.  A task of
-seamanship lay before him; lives depended on his strength.  He was a
-master mariner, in charge of his old ship--his ship, as truly as she had
-been that other morning, when, full of ambition and pride and courage,
-he had looked up at her untried sails.  He felt her surge beneath the
-heavy cargo, rising, flanking the seas, flinging them off savagely, like
-a man striking out from the shoulder.  He knew, he understood--that was
-the way he felt about it, too.  A couple of old hulks, living beyond
-their time; but the spirit was in them still.
-
-Unseen, surrounded by darkness, Captain Bradley stood upright against
-the weather rail, an indomitable figure, facing the storm.  The world
-could crush them--never the sea and the wind.  The sea was their home,
-the wind was their brother.  This was the fight that found them armed.
-
-
-
-
-                                 *VIII*
-
-
-The storm increased; the air was thick with snow, cold with the breath
-of Arctic winter.  In the middle of the night, the foresail and mainsail
-blew out of the bolt-ropes.  They bent and set the heavy new sails.
-Soon the spanker went, and was replaced.  Captain Bradley was driving
-the ship without mercy; for the wind was hauling inch by inch into the
-east, heading them off toward the dangerous lee shore.  The _Viking_
-stood the strain; her seaworthiness had never been put to a harder test,
-had never shown itself so handsomely.  She had been built in a day when
-work and honour had gone hand in hand.
-
-The morning dawned on a wild scene.  Great waves rushed at the ship,
-lifted her high in air, broke above her bows, and stopped her progress
-as if she had run against a wall.  It was high time to heave her to.
-They lowered the mainsail, foresail and jib, and managed somehow to get
-them furled.  The quarter-deck was comparatively dry; they had no
-difficulty in double-reefing the spanker.  In his specifications to the
-sailmaker, Captain Bradley had insisted on a double row of reef-point
-for this sail.
-
-To this tiny patch of canvas the _Viking_ rode hove-to for the next
-forty-eight hours, while the storm howled down on them from the waste of
-waters.  The decks were piled with snow, the ropes and sails were
-clogged with ice; slowly, mile after mile, the ship drifted against a
-pitiless lee shore.  Captain Bradley constantly kept the deck.  There
-was nothing more to be done--but he had to see the business through.
-
-When the storm broke, they were less than five miles off the Jersey
-shore at Atlantic City--so close had been their call.  The drive through
-the night at the beginning of the storm had saved them; without the
-offing made at that time, they would long since have landed in the
-breakers at Barnegat.  The wind jumped into the southwest, the clouds
-quickly rolled away.  They chopped the gaskets, cleared the ice away
-from the booms and sheets and halyards, and set all sail.  The ship paid
-off, heading up the coast; from the frozen and snowbound shore the sweet
-land-smell, always a miracle to sailors nearing port in winter, came off
-to them.  Night fell, the air grew crystalline, stars sparkled white and
-big in the cloudless sky.  Minute by minute the easterly swell
-decreased, knocked down by the offshore wind, as the old barge crept
-northward.  She sunk the lights of Atlantic City, picked up Barnegat,
-brought it abeam, dropped it on her port quarter.  Then Captain Bradley
-left the deck, for almost the first time in three days.
-
-He could not have kept on his feet any longer. The pain in his chest,
-that had set in the night before and grown by leaps and bounds during
-the last day of the storm, had now become so intense, at spasmodic
-intervals, that he felt unable to conceal his distress.  At times it was
-well-nigh unbearable.  His heart seemed trying to burst out of his body.
-Perhaps rest would ease the pain.  At any rate, he wanted to sit down
-somewhere, alone, in an effort to face and compass this new development.
-He wanted to give his courage an overhauling.
-
-They had sounded the pumps at sunset, with no result; the splendid old
-hull had not leaked a drop throughout the storm.  But at midnight they
-found two feet of water in the hold.  The mate, frightened half out of
-his wits, rushed below with the news.  Captain Bradley sat like a statue
-in the big chair, gripping the arms, his face white and drawn.  In his
-excitement, the mate did not notice his extraordinary pallor and
-rigidity.
-
-"Captain, Captain, she's sprung a leak! There's two feet of water in the
-hold already!
-
-"Two feet of water? ... Impossible!"
-
-The old man heaved himself to his feet and stumbled on deck, walking
-slowly and carefully, holding tight to the rail.  The shock of the news
-had loosed the terrible pain again; at every breath he drew, something
-seemed to be stabbing him with daggers.  He sounded the pumps with his
-own hands, to find that the mate's discovery was only too true.
-
-"What can have happened, what can have happened?" he kept muttering
-"The change of tack must have done it.  That's it!--the change of tack"
-Now that he had found an explanation, he could face the issue.  They
-manned the pumps at once--this was before the day of steam pumps aboard
-coal barges.  But the leak gained steadily on them, in spite of all they
-could do.
-
-It was a race with time now--for both of them. Captain Bradley gave a
-bitter laugh; he and the _Viking_ were throwing up the sponge together.
-The breeze had freshened, but the old ship was pitifully slow.  He swore
-to himself as he clung to the weather rail, watching the water drag
-past. He was thinking of the speed that she would have shown under her
-former canvas; twelve to fifteen knots, she would easily have reeled off
-with sky-sails set in this smashing breeze.  While he watched, the swift
-stabbing went on in his chest, as if some invisible enemy were taking
-full and cruel satisfaction.  Was he not to be permitted to bring his
-old ship to port?  Was this final insignificant success to be denied
-him?
-
-The winking eye of Navesink came in sight just before dawn.  At eight
-o'clock, they were abreast the Highland lightship.  The old barge was
-very low in the water, but she still retained a margin of buoyancy.
-With Captain Bradley, conditions for the last hour had been a little
-better.  He had kept the deck since the pumps began, refusing to give up
-to a physical encumbrance; and the pain had eased away, as if
-temporarily succumbing to his invincible will.
-
-Soon after passing the lightship, a towboat approached them, hauling up
-alongside.
-
-"Barge ahoy!  What barge is that?"
-
-"_Viking_.  Broke adrift from a tow--three days ago--off Montauk Point"
-
-"The devil you say!  I'll send a hawser right aboard"
-
-"You'd better.  Snatch us--up the bay--quick as you can.  Five feet of
-water--in the hold"
-
-"Perhaps I'd better beach you somewhere inside the Hook?"
-
-"No--tow us in.  I guess--the leak will stop--in quiet water"
-
-Whether it was judgment or prescience, Captain Bradley's surmise proved
-correct.  As they towed up the bay, pumping continually, the water in
-the hold at first remained for a while at a constant level, then began
-slowly to fall, enough to show that they were gaining on the leak.
-
-Below the Narrows, the tugboat dropped astern, ranging up on the
-_Viking's_ quarter.
-
-"Well, old man, where have you decided to go?"
-
-Captain Bradley stood in the starboard alley-way, one hand grasping the
-rail, the other the corner of the after house.  It was the only way that
-he could hold himself upright.  In the last half hour the pain had
-returned with fresh violence. Since its return, he had known what he
-would have to do.  The ship was all right now; but, for him, little time
-remained.
-
-"Anchor us--at Tompkinsville--close inshore. Send word to my office.
-Get some men--my crew are--worn out.  Bring off a doctor--for God's
-sake!..."  The strained voice broke in a shrill cry.
-
-The mate ran aft along the alley-way.  "Captain!--what's the matter,
-sir?"
-
-"Sick"  Captain Bradley's hand flew to his breast, clutching his coat in
-a great handful.  His face turned deathly white, his eyes closed, his
-mouth twisted in the intensity of the pain.  For an instant he swayed;
-then opened his eyes again, and pulled himself upright against the rail.
-
-"I brought her in!" he cried loudly  "My old ship ... under sail"
-
-The mate was just in time to catch him as he pitched forward insensible.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *IX*
-
-
-The doctor came out of the captain's stateroom with a grave look on his
-face.  The mate stood in the middle of the cabin floor, nervous and
-unstrung; he had been fond of Captain Bradley. The afternoon sun
-streamed through the cabin skylight.  For several hours they had been
-watching the old man struggle for breath.  The mate's gaze roved
-uneasily over the top of the chart table, where, according to his
-invariable habit, the captain had that morning spread the tablecover
-that he used in port, and had set out a few pictures and ornaments, to
-make the cabin look more homelike.  He had done it between spasms of
-pain, while they had been towing up the bay; had done it for something
-to occupy his mind.  He always tried to arrange the things as he
-remembered his wife used to do.
-
-"He can't last much longer" said the doctor "His heart is practically
-gone"
-
-The mate nodded without looking up.  "Is he suffering much pain?"
-
-"Not now.  I've just given him another hypodermic.  That's all we can do
-for him"
-
-They went together into the stateroom.  Captain Bradley lay quietly
-against a heap of pillows, with his eyes half closed.  He had regained
-consciousness as soon as they had brought him below. As the mate bent
-above him, he opened his eyes and stared dully around the room.  He was
-muttering to himself.  The mate leaned closer--then drew back sharply,
-realizing that the words were only the product of delirium.
-
-"Hello, hello! ... that you, Sargent?  When did you arrive?  Let's get a
-couple of chairs this afternoon, and go along Glenealy Road.  I want to
-see Hong Kong harbour again through the bamboo trees....  Remember that
-day we had a picnic on Glenealy Road?  You had your wife with you that
-voyage.  My Frankie got tired: I had to carry him in my arms....
-Frankie never grew up.  No....  He died"
-
-The mate shook his head violently, as if to throw off the mortality of
-the scene.  He turned away from the bunk.  "Why does the old man have to
-wander so?" he demanded sharply.
-
-"The opiate" said the doctor  "Don't worry--he isn't suffering now"
-
-Captain Bradley regarded his officer with a long and profound stare.
-Suddenly, recognition dawned in his eyes.
-
-"Oh, Foster!--what do you say?  How much water do the pumps give now?
-Any chance of the leak drying up?"
-
-"Only a couple of feet left in her, Captain. Four men have come off from
-shore to relieve our crew.  We'll soon have her as dry as a bone, sir"
-
-"No use"  Captain Bradley rolled his head on the pillow  "You'll find
-her larboard strake started--port side of the keel.  She's finished.
-She'll have to go to the junk heap now"  He lay quiet a moment,
-thinking.  "If I had my way, she should be towed to sea, and sunk in
-deep water.  I ought to go along with her....  But I suppose she's worth
-a few dollars as junk" Suddenly he sat up in bed, threw off the clothes,
-and raised his clenched hands above his head. "Oh, my God!" he screamed
-"I've been working all my life, and I haven't a few dollars to redeem my
-old ship!"
-
-"Lie down, Captain.  You must keep quiet. Lie down, sir.  You'll feel
-better in a little while"
-
-"Yes, yes"  The paroxysm passed; the old man fell back exhausted.  Again
-his mind wandered; he seemed to be sinking off into a doze.  Like a
-child at the end of the day, half way between sleeping and waking, he
-babbled of endeavours on the playground of the world.
-
-"After that typhoon, I rigged a jury rudder and brought her into
-Manila....  Oh, yes, they said it was....  You wouldn't expect an
-accident in the trade winds.  The fore-topmast went at the head of the
-lower mast, carrying the jibboom with it; but in a couple of weeks you
-couldn't have told that anything had happened....  Pleasant weather,
-pleasant weather....  I looked up, and saw his green light almost
-hanging over my bow.... Funny, isn't it, how things come round?..."
-
-Gradually he stopped muttering.  The doctor took his pulse, then
-beckoned the mate to follow him into the cabin.  "It can't be long now"
-he whispered  "Who was the old fellow, anyway? He seems to have a
-strange assortment on his mind"
-
-"I don't know much about him.  He was a fine man....  Say, you stand in
-the door, there, and tell me when he's finished.  I can't bear to watch
-him any longer"
-
-They had been waiting some time in silence, when a quick movement in the
-bunk started them running toward the stateroom.  Captain Bradley was
-sitting up in bed again.  All trace of pain had left his features.  His
-hands lay quietly on the coverlet, his eyes were fixed on something far
-away.  The faint shadow of a smile crossed his face, illuminating it
-with an expression of wisdom and serenity.
-
-"Grace!  Frankie!  _Under sail!_" he cried in a loud voice--then settled
-slowly back among the pillows.
-
-When they reached him, the old man was dead.
-
-
-
-
-                                *ANJER*
-
-
-
-                                *ANJER*
-
-                                  *I*
-
-
-"Do you see that mass of trees in the deep shadow?" asked Nichols,
-pointing toward the shore  "There's a house behind them--the old
-consulate bungalow.  Years ago, when the China trade was flourishing,
-all ships used to stop at Anjer for mail and orders; for this reason, I
-suppose, our government used to keep a consul here, though he wasn't
-much but a postmaster. Anjer was the first port of call after the long
-outward passage; every man who has sailed to the East remembers it with
-affection.  You crossed the Indian Ocean in the 'roaring forties' then
-swung abruptly north through the southeast trades. At length, one
-morning, fresh from a three months' chase of the empty horizon, you
-sighted Java Head, that black old foreland looming out of the water like
-a gigantic sperm whale; and before the day had gone, you'd entered the
-Straits of Sunda, with Java to starboard, close aboard, and Sumatra in
-the distance to port; had passed Princess Island, sighted and drawn
-abreast of Krakatoa, taken your cross-bearings on the Button and the
-Cap, turned off at Twart-the-Way; and, toward sunset, had drifted into
-Anjer Roads, before the last puffs of the sea-breeze.
-
-"You had reached the land again.  Reached it?--you'd plunged into its
-very heart.  And such a heart--and such a land.  The Gateway of the
-East, the Portal of the Dawn--a scene of love and longing, the ecstasy
-of life, rich with tumultuous growth, and charged with the passionate
-odour of blooming flowers.  You had come to it from the ocean, remember;
-from wide expanses of waste and emptiness, from the high sky and the
-brooding night and the homeless wind, from the mental standpoint of one
-who had forgotten his measure of comparison, who had lost his grip on
-reality.  The very strangeness of the limited and circumscribed sea,
-with shores on every hand, with mountains piling the whole horizon,
-inspired a sensation of wonder and curiosity, as if this had been your
-first view of the terrestrial world.  But ere this sensation, the
-breaking of the sea-habit, the shortening of the focus, the opening of
-the door, had fairly possessed you, other allurements were striving for
-the mastery.  There was the hand of the East, held out in alien
-greeting; there was the breath of romance in the nostrils, the call of
-love in the heart, the smells, the voices, the colours, the whisper of
-adventure, the touch of magic and mystery.  All this, in the old days,
-was meant to you by Anjer, by that cluster of bamboo houses beyond the
-fringe of the banyan trees, that point, that lighthouse, those hills
-climbing the eastern sky, and this secluded anchorage, where we happened
-to drift before the tide--deserted now, as you see it, and quite
-forgotten, but once the toll-keeper of the sailing fleets of the world"
-
-Nichols waved a hand.
-
-"What about the old consulate bungalow?" someone asked,
-
-"Oh, yes; I'll tell you"  The captain of the _Omega_ pulled himself up
-abruptly  "I knew it first as a boy before the mast.  My maiden voyage
-was made into the East; I came to Anjer, saw the native dugouts gather
-around the ship, examined their wares of fruit and birds and monkeys,
-rolls of painted cloth and wonderful shells; I saw the consul's boat
-bring off the old tin post-box that visited every ship calling at
-Anjer--it disgorged for my delight, I remember, a letter from my mother,
-the first home letter that I had ever received at sea; and later in the
-day, I pulled bow oar in the captain's, boat when he went ashore to pay
-the consul a social call.  From that time onward, hardly a year passed
-that I didn't see the consulate bungalow.  When I became master of a
-vessel, I always used to go ashore and visit the place; it's beautifully
-situated among palm trees, with an open view of the roadstead and a
-winding path leading up from the landing.  Old Reardon was glad to see a
-fellow countryman; we'd have a drink or two, chat for an hour over some
-month-old piece of news that had just reached this outpost of
-civilization; then part for another interval, he to hold the lodge of
-the Orient, I to continue an endless pilgrimage.
-
-"Yes, I felt that I knew the consulate bungalow of Anjer pretty well.
-But, in these quick lands, a house is a mere incident, is nothing but
-its inhabitants; and my familiarity with this structure in Reardon's
-time didn't exactly prepare me for what I was afterwards to meet between
-its walls....  And now I'll have to begin at the beginning"
-
-
-
-
-                                  *II*
-
-
-He waited so long in silence that we began to grow impatient.  A faint
-evening breeze drew across the water, bringing the heavy scent of the
-land.  Above the Anjer hills hung a full golden moon, beneath which, in
-vague, translucent shadow, the shores of Java seemed sunk in an
-enchanted calm.
-
-"I was wondering whether I could show you the sort of man Bert Mackay
-was" Nichols resumed suddenly  "It's difficult enough to lay down the
-lines of any human being; and Bert was a doubly complex subject,
-chiefly, perhaps, because the key to his nature was so simple.
-Simplicity seems the most erratic of qualities to a world trained in
-suppression and negation.  He was one of those startling fellows whom
-people instinctively like, but daren't approve of.  He was brilliant but
-not entirely well balanced, let us put it; as primitive a soul as I've
-ever come in contact with.  In fact, he was really wild, like
-nature--didn't attempt to pause or reckon, but let life come and go; and
-like nature, too, his growth was a series of instinctive processes.  A
-man of the open, swift-minded, magnetic, and sincere, he was a
-tremendous vital force, stirring life violently wherever he touched it;
-while a romantic conscience, which plunged him into moods of contrition
-and despair, seemed to bring him out of every experience with a clear
-eye and an innocence apparently unimpaired.
-
-"You can imagine, with all this, that his way with women was rash,
-sudden, appalling, and awfully fascinating.  He couldn't talk well, but
-had a presence and manner that spoke for him louder than words.  He was
-tall and dark and virile, a devilishly handsome chap.  In fact, he
-possessed the secret of power that can't be cultivated or affected, the
-emanation of love, a glorious and terrible inheritance.  Something quite
-different, you know, from any trace of carnality; he wasn't a sensual
-man at all.  He broke many hearts, I'm afraid; how, in the ordinary
-course of life and days, could it have been otherwise?  I used to warn
-him to watch out; to tell him that some day, in a stroke of divine
-retribution, his own heart would be broken past mending.
-
-"'I hope so, Nichols!' he used to fling out, with the serious gaiety
-that was one of his most charming characteristics  'You can't imagine
-what a lost soul I am.  Nothing else will save me'
-
-"I'd known Bert Mackay since college days, when for a couple of years we
-had roomed together and established one of the priceless understandings
-of life.  The affection that lay between us was closer than that of
-brothers, close enough mutually to excuse our faults in each other's
-eyes. He became an electrical engineer, went to New York, and rose
-rapidly in his profession; while I, as you know, followed the sea.
-Every now and then I'd come to New York; and while in port, would move
-my things uptown and live with him. He was well connected, knew many
-groups of interesting people, and seemed, to my eye, to be living the
-richest sort of life.  Our intermittent relation was an ideal one for
-two friends; our intimacy grew closer, as voyage followed voyage, and I
-supposed there wasn't an adventure of his that I didn't know about.  But
-I might have realized, of course, that when the bolt of divine
-retribution actually struck him, it would be the last subject on which
-he'd give me his confidence.
-
-"However that may be, I wasn't aware of any trouble, hadn't anticipated
-disaster, and was both shocked and alarmed, on my arrival in New York
-one summer, to find a brief note from him saying that he had gone away.
-He gave no address, and told me not to hunt for him.  The letter was
-four or five months old.  'I am trying to do the right thing' he wrote
-'God knows, I've done enough wrong things.  Perhaps you'll hear from me
-again, perhaps you won't.  It will depend on how I feel. I'm throwing up
-the whole game here.  Something pretty hard has come into my life, and I
-have got to go.  I must work this out alone. There isn't much of a
-chance--but that doesn't matter.  The price has to be paid just the
-same'  Then, after a few instructions about some of his private affairs,
-he asked me to forgive him, said I was not to worry, and assured me of
-his unfailing affection.
-
-"You can imagine how the news took hold of me.  The nature of the affair
-was unmistakeable; a tragedy of the heart had overtaken him--the fate
-that I'd often lightly predicted, and that he as often had expressed a
-willingness to find. Well, he was saved now, it would seem.  I
-wondered....  Searching the past for a clue to this untoward
-development, I recalled his air of mingled restraint and melancholy at
-the time of our last meeting, the year before.  I had noticed it only to
-put it down to one of his many incomprehensible moods.  The night of my
-departure, I remembered, after we'd come in from the theatre, he had
-spent hours, it seemed, on the couch in the studio living-room,
-strumming on an old guitar and singing to himself in an incoherent form
-of improvisation, a habit of his when he was feeling especially blue.
-I'd been trying to write some letters, and the maddening mournful
-sounds, with the notes of the guitar picking through, had at length
-driven me to desperation.
-
-"'For God's sake, sing something!' I cried, dashing out of my room--he
-was a brilliant musician.  'But if you go on whining like the wind
-through a knothole, I can't be answerable for the consequences'
-
-"'All right, Nicky, I'll stop' he had answered with a grin  'I'm a
-selfish ass, I know.  But I'm not whining....  No, I don't feel like
-singing to-night'  I realized now that, even then, he must have been in
-the toils of the tragedy.
-
-"So this was the end of a comradeship all too brief, as life goes.
-Friends are scarce enough, heaven knows, without a fellow's losing one
-in such vague circumstances.  But the years went by, and I didn't hear a
-word from Bert.  At first, I missed and worried about him acutely; then,
-little by little, he faded off into the background, as even the sharpest
-details of the great picture of life do if we keep moving.  Perspectives
-change, too.  I continued, of course, to think of him now and then,
-wondering what he might have lost or found.  But I never felt occasion
-to doubt the nature of his quest; he had come into that heritage
-foreordained at the launching of his sensitive and romantic soul.
-Something had called him down the wind, some note, some fragrance, some
-face of beauty, some revelation of delight; and he'd gone out to find
-the answer and consummation--love or death--that hearts like his pursue"
-
-
-
-
-                                 *III*
-
-
-Nichols reached for a cigar.  "Ten years and more had gone by" he went
-on slowly "when, one voyage, I reached the Straits of Sunda, bound for
-Hong Kong and Amoy.  The southwest monsoon was on the point of breaking;
-for several days we'd been treated to baffling winds.  It was in the
-latter part of the afternoon that, favoured by an unexpected slant of
-offshore wind, I managed to fetch the anchorage here, slipped into Anjer
-Roads with quite a rush, and dropped my anchor in a berth abreast of the
-landing.  I hadn't been through Sunda for a couple of years.
-
-"The first boat that came off from shore--Reardon's old
-whaleboat--brought me disappointing news.  Reardon himself, it seemed,
-had been transferred to Batavia the year before, and the consulate had
-been discontinued; my letters, if any had been sent to Anjer, were being
-held in Batavia or Singapore.  Old Sa-lee, Reardon's boatswain, was
-still in charge of the boat, but seemed to be merely following a
-lifelong habit in coming off to every ship that called.  He wanted to
-see his old friends, to gossip, and to bemoan the decline of human
-institutions.  While we talked, leaning across the rail, he told me in
-the course of conversation that, some time after Reardon had left Anjer,
-the consulate bungalow had been occupied by a stranger.  The fact wasn't
-of sufficient interest to me just then to elicit an inquiry.  I had just
-reached the realization, with a shock of deep regret, that Anjer the
-beautiful had taken its place with the rest of the world's lost glories,
-that another page in the romantic annals of seafaring had closed.
-
-"The air was hot and heavy that evening--one of those nights of
-threatening showers that never come.  After supper, I had settled myself
-morosely in a deck-chair; it seemed quite unaccountable not to be going
-ashore in this familiar situation.  The moon was high and full above the
-hills, as it is to-night, but clouded by a faint mist like descending
-veils of dew.  The ship seemed resting after the long passage; on the
-forecastle-head a couple of men were singing, accompanied by an old
-accordion.  Across the water, as if in answer, floated the voices of
-natives somewhere in the jungle, lifted in wild and startling melodies.
-The same breeze fanned down from the land--the breeze that seems always
-to be blowing here in the early evening, filling the straits with the
-overpowering sweetness of bloom and decay.
-
-"It must have been quite late--the moon had risen overhead, and the
-singing had died out forward and ashore--when I first noticed lights in
-the old consulate bungalow.  I at once thought of the stranger whom
-Sa-lee had mentioned. Who could he be?  What misanthrope had chosen that
-house of solitude for his habitation?  How did he manage to pass the
-time?  It went without saying that he was a European; Sa-lee would not
-have mentioned him otherwise.  I kept my eye on the light, which seemed
-to travel about, vanishing now and then as if behind a closed door.  As
-I watched, my interest became more and more awakened.  I began to
-imagine all sorts of people in that bungalow; a tremendous failure, a
-fellow who'd fled from the wreck of a tragic past; an exile, for some
-romantic reason or other, who had seen my ship in the offing, had
-hurried home, and was making ready for a visit, longing for the sight of
-a strange face and a word from the outside world; a criminal, who feared
-my presence in the roadstead, who was even now busy concealing evidence,
-sweeping tables, locking drawers.
-
-"Suddenly it occurred to me to go ashore and satisfy my curiosity.  Why
-hadn't I thought of it before?  I called my mate.  'Mr. Hunter' said I
-'send some men aft and throw the dingey overboard.  Then haul her up to
-the side-ladder'
-
-"Handling the tiller-ropes of the dingey, with two men rowing, I
-directed her bow toward Reardon's old landing.  Under the hills the land
-loomed high.  You know that feeling of strangeness, of transmutation,
-which comes at the end of a voyage at sea, when for the first time you
-step from the ship's deck into a small boat, when you look across the
-water from a lower level, see the shore approach, and hear the hum of
-waves on a beach close at hand.  There's a trace almost of apprehension
-mingled with it, the instinct of the sailor warning him of shallow water
-and danger in proximity.  I felt it, a nameless tingling excitement;
-besides, I had by this time worked myself to quite a pitch of fancy over
-Sa-lee's stranger.
-
-"Reardon's landing was already dilapidated; I scrambled up it and picked
-my way to the shore, telling the men to wait there for me without fail,
-for I didn't want them straying to the village. Striking the path at the
-head of the pier, I hurried forward, keeping myself as much as possible
-in the deep shadow of palm trees that lined the up-hill slope.  I wanted
-to catch this fellow napping, whoever he was, wanted to observe his face
-in a moment of surprise.  Then I should be better able to place him.
-The air under the trees was thick with the reek of tropic earth; sounds
-made themselves distinctly heard in the great silence. I advanced up the
-path noiseless and unseen, and in a few minutes arrived in plain sight
-of the bungalow.
-
-"The little house, with its broad flanking verandahs, stood surrounded
-by trees and underbrush.  It had a neglected appearance; even in the
-night I could make out how the jungle had closed around it in the two
-years since Reardon's departure.  The light inside the bungalow was
-gone; heavy shadows filled the verandahs, so that I couldn't have seen a
-person sitting there.  I began to wonder whether the tenant had turned
-in for the night; stepped aside from the path, and started to skirt the
-house, with the instinct that invariably leads a man to the rear when
-he's eavesdropping; and was about to strike across a patch of bright
-moonlight toward the side porch, when a strange sound broke the intense
-stillness and knocked me back into the shadow as if by a physical blow.
-
-"Someone had begun to play a guitar on the verandah.  The next moment a
-voice came out on the night, soft and suppressed, a voice like an echo,
-that seemed to lose itself in the silken chamber of the night.  Either a
-baritone or a very deep contralto; but I felt it to be a man's voice,
-without understanding why.  I listened, but couldn't hear distinctly.
-While I listened, I was conscious of an exquisite perfection of emotion.
-I seemed to stand at the heart of an old and visionary land, the witness
-of an ancient parable; the voice was the voice of Adam singing the first
-love song in Eden, and the veiled languorous moon was the same moon that
-had stirred that song through the untold nights of men.
-
-"Suddenly the voice rose and swelled; I caught the words, the tone, the
-melody....  All at once I remembered--and knew, with a shock of
-recollection, who it was.  The quality of the voice hadn't changed; the
-song itself was familiar. I'd heard it often, as he lay on the couch in
-the New York studio, or sat at the piano in one of his wandering musical
-moods.  It seemed impossible.  How could he be here?  I choked, in the
-midst of uttering a low exclamation--must have made quite a fuss.  He
-got up abruptly, breaking off the song; I heard the guitar strike the
-floor with a hollow clash.
-
-"'Who is there?' he asked softly, as if expecting a visitor from that
-direction.
-
-"I pulled myself together, started across the patch of open ground, and
-came into the moonlight. When I'd reached a little nearer, I saw him
-standing at the rail of the verandah; he leaned out, showing his face--a
-good deal older than I remembered, but unmistakeably the face of my
-vanished friend.
-
-"'Who is it?' he asked again, sharply now, for he had discovered that it
-was a man.
-
-"I felt the need of making an excuse for introduction. 'Bert' said I  'I
-haven't been following your trail.  It's just an amazing stroke of
-chance. That is my ship in the roadstead.  I happened to call.
-
-"He leaned out farther, a look of helpless bewilderment on his face.
-Then recognition dawned with a great rush.  'Nichols!' he cried
-desperately.  Gazing at me wide-eyed, he repeated my name in a lower
-tone, in accents of simple wonder.  Suddenly, as he gazed, the weight of
-the years seemed to strike him with a crushing force; he crumpled,
-dropped to his knees, and buried his face on the railing.  When I took
-his hand, he gripped me like a vice.  We didn't speak for a long time.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *IV*
-
-
-"After I'd sent my boat back aboard, with orders to come ashore for me
-in the morning, we sat talking on the verandah till late in the night.
-Ten years of life had to be reconstructed; the astonishing thing was
-that I had found him even then.  'Of all places on earth' I asked 'how
-did you happen to land in this God-forsaken spot?'
-
-"'Oh, I came up from Australia, about eight months ago' said he  'A
-friend of mine down there, a sea captain, told me about it; said the
-bungalow was vacant and could be had almost for the asking.  It's quiet
-here, and yet a fellow sees ships and things--watches life go by'  He
-had been pacing backward and forward, and now stopped in front of my
-chair.  'It's heaven!' he cried  'Nothing to raise a row, nothing to
-fight for, nothing to live for, much....  Nothing to bother--that is....
-You can't imagine how quiet and peaceful it seems'
-
-"His words confirmed the impression I'd always had of his disappearance;
-yet, even in the midst of his hopelessness I seemed to detect a note of
-hesitation, something concealed from me--perhaps concealed from him, for
-he rarely analyzed his own reactions.  I led him away from his story for
-a while, trying to fix the status of his existence.  We talked of old
-times; he remembered them keenly, kept citing queer details, jests that
-used to amuse us, chance remarks that seemed to have lodged in his mind.
-Almost at once, his infectious laugh came into play.  The old spirit was
-unquenchable.  By Jove, the man wasn't half so hopeless as he would have
-himself believe.... I took my eyes away from him, looked around at the
-jungle rising against the hills; and all at once it struck me how
-closely he resembled, in essential nature, the land he'd stumbled on. A
-land full of the instinct of beauty, the gift of love; weary, too, and
-wise with age, yet fired with the undying youth of quick vitality.
-
-"'Why don't you stay here?' I demanded  'Why talk of going home?  I have
-a notion that you belong here.  Why don't you love, be happy?...'
-
-"'No, no!' he interrupted hurriedly  'You don't know what you're talking
-about'  He stopped short, gazing at me as if he were searching my mind.
-'Love won't come to me again' said he.
-
-"'Nonsense!' I answered  'That's morbid, Bert.  What possible reason...'
-
-"'Good God!' he burst out  'Haven't I the right to know?'  He wandered
-to the railing, leaned against a post there, and turned his face away.
-'Long ago' said he slowly 'I took every ray and hope of love out of my
-heart, and took them in my hands--so--and crushed them, and killed them,
-and threw them down--as if I'd taken my heart itself and squeezed the
-last drop of blood out of it like a sponge.  I tell you, Nichols, the
-thing's dead'
-
-"'But you haven't told me' I reminded him.
-
-"He took a longer walk this time, round the corner of the verandah; when
-he came back, he sat down beside me like a man tired with carrying a
-load.  'Do you remember a little girl I used to talk about?' he asked
-'I think you met her once in New York, the year before I left.  Her name
-was Helen Rand'
-
-"'A slender girl with dark hair and brown eyes?'
-
-"'Yes....  Well, she went away.  She's got the same eyes now, wide
-childish....'
-
-"'Now!' I shouted  'You don't mean--she isn't...'
-
-"'No, no' said he  'I haven't seen her for these eight months.  She's
-down in Australia--was then--Melbourne'
-
-"'What have you been doing now?...' I began, but he cut me off sharply.
-
-"'Nothing' said he  'She isn't mine--never has been'  He leaned toward
-me  'But I've been near her night and day--as near as I could get. Ready
-to help, you know--anything.  God, I had to be in the same place.  But
-perhaps you won't understand'  He hesitated, then went on doggedly  'I
-found out too late that I loved her.  I found it out just one day too
-late.  I've been paying for that one day.  And all I've done, all I
-could do, wouldn't begin to balance the account. I wonder whether you
-see?'
-
-"'How could you keep it going so long?' I asked.
-
-"He laughed harshly.  'I knew you wouldn't understand.  Just because you
-think that love means faith and chastity, quietness, placid days and
-years, you have no eye for the love that lives in the fires of hell.
-But it's the same love.  Bad as she is, I can't help loving her'
-
-"The story, coming brokenly, by fits and starts, achieved by its very
-barrenness a certain grim intensity.  The white light of his
-extraordinary narrative revealed a background sombre and hard, against
-which stood the drama of his ineffectual warfare, a play without hope
-and without reward, saved from inanity only by the tremendous fervour of
-his love.  She had fled from New York without warning, it seems, fleeing
-from life, from him, from the scene and memory, perhaps, of that one
-day.  He had a slight clue, but it took him half a year to find her.
-When at last they met, she didn't want him, didn't need him, wouldn't
-have him.  This was in San Francisco, where she went on the stage again,
-and lived for over a year, successful, apparently happy, and growing
-more beautiful every day.  'People talked about her, you know' he told
-me  'She became quite the rage.  Such a little girl, with serious
-eyes....'
-
-She must have been clever, too, for she kept a good grip on herself.
-Soon she married a man of twice her years with a considerable fortune,
-and passed into another world.  Bert had forsaken his profession, and
-had gone into journalism; he could have done anything passably well.
-One thing, however, he could not bring himself to do again, and that was
-to enter society.  He didn't get on as a journalist--couldn't put his
-heart into the business of life.  He told me that for a time he went
-shabby and hungry.  Once in a great while he would see her, perhaps in
-passing, and they would have a few words together; but the occasions
-became more and more infrequent.
-
-"'Then she left her husband, in the whirlwind of a sensational scandal.
-Bert missed only by the merest chance having to write about it for his
-paper.  He sought her out at once; she had gone to an hotel there in the
-city, where she lived openly as the mistress of the other man.  'What
-are you doing, Bert, hanging around this town?' she had asked him point
-blank  'I want to be near in case you need me, Helen' he answered
-humbly.  She gazed at him with those eyes that, according to his
-account, still retained their innocence--though it's hard to believe
-they hadn't by then acquired a trace or two of calculation.  'It's gone
-a long way beyond that' said she coldly  'I won't need you again'  He
-tried to take her hand.  'I can't let you go thus, Helen!' he cried
-'Let me go?  You sent me' she told him.
-
-"'What was the use?' said he to me 'I thought of the old days--they
-seemed old already; and when I looked at her, I couldn't realize that
-there had been any change.  But it seemed pretty evident that she had
-left off caring.  So I left her--but I couldn't go away'
-
-"Some months later, she went in a yacht for a cruise among the South Sea
-Islands.  The cruise was a long one; it ended, for her, in a quarrel at
-Honolulu, as a result of which she changed her second man for a third,
-and took up her abode in that glorious island of the Pacific where
-everything but happiness is supposed to wither and die in the magic sun.
-In the course of time Bert heard the details, folded his tent and
-followed her.  But almost as soon as he landed in Honolulu she was off
-on another tack; for by now she had settled into the stride of her
-career.
-
-"So it went on, year after year, from Honolulu to Shanghai, from
-Shanghai to Hong Kong, and down the coast to Singapore; a term in
-Calcutta, another term in Batavia; a year on the West Coast, Lima,
-Iquiqui, Valparaiso, she never resting, and he following in due time.
-It's hard to imagine what her life must have been during this
-pilgrimage; for now we know that she loved him, too, and that her heart
-likewise burned in the fires of hell.  Pride, pride, what anguish will
-be borne in thy name!  She had of course grown into a strong,
-clear-headed woman; only strength could have carried her so far.  But he
-must have managed things very badly.  I haven't a doubt that the thought
-of him constantly at her heels, the sight of him now and then in her
-wake, making hard weather of it, spurred her to the course that she had
-chosen.  No woman respects a man who can't solve his own destiny.
-
-"How they finally came to Australia, I don't clearly remember.  They
-must have been there some time; he spoke of Sydney, of Newcastle, of
-Brisbane, and of Melbourne, where he saw her for the last time.  'I met
-her face to face one day' said he  'She looked a little tarnished--as if
-things had been going downhill with her.  I suppose I told her so; I
-wasn't in the mood to dodge facts that day.  She was angry at my
-comment--I don't blame her.  But I tried to make up for it the next
-moment--show her what I really meant, how glad I would be--that is, that
-it rested with her to change everything.  I asked her if I mightn't come
-to see her; she answered that it wasn't difficult to gain access to her
-apartment. All the while she was looking me over with a sort of amused
-scorn.  Then she said something that was quite unnecessary.  She said I
-didn't look as if I had the price....  That woke me up. I realized
-suddenly, fully, decisively, how impossible it was to keep on.
-Impossible!...'  By chance, I'd been talking about Anjer with Captain
-Roach that very morning.  He was sailing the next day, bound up this
-way, and I came along with him.  Reardon leased me the bungalow; I went
-with Roach to Batavia, for he knew that the consulate had been
-abandoned.  So here I am. I've got a little money, enough to live on.
-And God's being good to me--I've found a measure of peace.  Now you have
-come along--I think I'll be all right....'
-
-"'Yes, this certainly was the place for you' I temporized, struggling
-with irritation at the mess he had made of existence.  I couldn't but
-recognize the inevitability of what he had told me; but my heart kept
-asking, why is it necessary for men to be so selfish, so helpless in the
-face of results clearly to be foreseen?
-
-"'Exactly' he agreed with my spoken word. 'This land has taught me a
-great lesson.  I'm getting back my grip ... more than I hoped....'  He
-stopped abruptly.  Again I had the feeling of something being held back,
-of something missing from the story.  I awoke to the fact that,
-notwithstanding all he had told me, his present spiritual status
-remained unexplained. He quite obviously _had_ recovered his grip--but
-how, and why?  It wasn't in keeping with the rest of the hidden years.
-And of course I didn't believe my own platitude on the influence of the
-land.
-
-"'I mean, I'm getting back my self-respect' he said  'I'm really
-thinking of going home.  The past begins to look like a sort of joke--a
-horrible, fantastic joke; but I shall leave off loving her now.  Try to,
-anyway.  I've learned....'
-
-"I wondered what it could be that so puzzled me about the case.  After
-I'd gone to bed that night--it was nearly morning--I lay awake for a
-long while trying to think the problem out.  Why had he lost his
-self-respect, in the beginning? Because she wouldn't love him?  I
-thought I knew him well enough to recognize this as the correct answer;
-he belonged to the unhappy company of men who can't support life when
-the ego is denied. But she had sent him away, at last, with a lash of
-the whip, with scorn that even his tried humility couldn't brook.  How
-the devil, then, had he recovered his self-respect?  Self-respect is a
-matter of human relations; it can't be drawn out of the air.
-
-
-
-
-                                  *V*
-
-
-"While I tossed on the bed, vainly trying to piece this broken logic
-together, I heard someone moving on the opposite side of the house.
-Bert and I were alone in the bungalow.  He, too, had been kept awake by
-the excitement of our meeting.  Soon he began to pace softly up and down
-the far side of the verandah.  I was debating in my mind the wisdom of
-going out to have another smoke with him, when his footsteps seemed to
-leave the porch and sink into the grass.  In a moment I heard low voices
-outside, a little distance from the house.  I couldn't make out what was
-being said.  Suddenly I thought that someone must have come with a
-message from the ship.  I jumped up and ran to the window.
-
-"My window opened on the patch of moonlight across which I'd come
-earlier in the evening.  He stood there now, as if waiting; and, before
-I could speak, a woman came toward him with a gliding, crouching step,
-starting out of the very shadow where I'd paused to hear the song.  As
-she drew near, he held out his arms; she quickened her pace, like a
-jungle deer, and flung herself on his breast, uttering low, native
-cries.  'You are safe? You will not go?' she asked breathlessly. 'Safe?'
-he asked, bending above her  'Have you been watching?'  She looked into
-his face with a glance of infinite concern.  'The man stood beside me,
-as I was about to call' said she  'I would have killed him, but I saw
-that you were warned'  'Thank God!' he exclaimed  'You should have
-known--and gone away'  She drew her arms about his neck.  'I could not
-go!' she cried  'I had to see you!'  'Hush!' said he 'Speak lower--you
-will wake my friend'
-
-"She used perfect English, though her language was picturesque.  'Your
-friend?  Who is your friend?' she asked fiercely  'In all the time that
-you have dwelt here, no ships have waited, you have had no friends come.
-Who is your friend that comes in a great ship, unknown and unbidden?'
-He smiled down at her.  'Dear heart' said he 'he is more than brother to
-me, and I have not seen him for many years'
-
-"She shrank away from him.  'Ah!' she cried 'Then he will take you--you
-will go?'
-
-"'No, not yet' he told her  'Not, perhaps, for a long time'
-
-"'But you will go?' she persisted  'Some day you will not be here--and,
-for me, the sun will fail to rise, and the moon and stars will grow
-cold, and all light will die--and you will not be here!'
-
-"'I have told you, dear, it must be so' said he. 'You knew it long ago'
-
-"Again her arms clasped him.  'No, no!' she cried  'I cannot let you!
-You are mine!  Stay here.  It is a fair land--and am I not fair?'  She
-touched her breast  'You will not look at me!' said she.
-
-"'I dare not!'
-
-"'Then look!' she whispered.
-
-"I saw him take her in his arms.  So he had found ... this, beyond what
-he had hoped. Another wave of irritation at his heartlessness swept over
-me.  I turned away angrily--then paused a moment, considering the true
-nature of the phenomenon that had appeared before me as if out of the
-sky.  I felt that he hadn't sought this new entanglement.  No, but he
-had evidently accepted it.  Yet the woman had furnished the motive
-force, literally had flung herself at his head.  Nonsense!--why be a
-prudish ass?  It wasn't in the least a matter of morals; why persist,
-then, in viewing it on the moral plane?  Incurable habit of
-conventionality, never so strong as when we strive to be unconventional!
-Here was a meeting of instincts and elements, a transaction in lucid
-terms, according to a simple formula.  It was a phase of God's
-excruciating biological experiment.  She wanted him alone, and had taken
-her way to get him.  He was receptive, for he wanted love.  Could she
-have awakened love in him, he would not have denied it.  Failing that,
-he would be forced to seek elsewhere.  In the meantime, why repel divine
-experience? ... But the shocking callousness of this experiment! While
-he dallied, detached and unconcerned, his life had been refreshed as if
-at a fountain of vitality.  His heart sang with the knowledge that she
-loved him; he was happy, whole, and conscious of his power again.  He'd
-said that he had recovered his self-respect--a curious choice of words,
-in view of the occasion; but now I understood what he had meant....
-This had been her priceless gift to him.
-
-"A quick exclamation outside drew me again to the window--could you
-fellows have kept away? He was trying to disengage her arms from about
-his neck.  'It cannot be!' said he decisively  'It is impossible!  So,
-to save greater pain, I will go at once'
-
-"She clung to him desperately.  'I do not understand' she cried.
-
-"'Dear heart' he answered  'I have seen too much, and failed too
-miserably, to want the spell to fall on you.  All that I touch turns to
-ashes; whoever enters my life is cursed with my own pain'
-
-"She gazed deeply into his eyes.  'I am not afraid' said she  'It is for
-this I love.  For what is past, I have no memory.  To-day lives,
-to-morrow we carry with us like a child unborn, but yesterday is dead.
-What do you seek?  Love? Have I not given you all?'  She threw out her
-arm in a sweeping gesture  'My love will never fail!' she cried.
-
-"'I prize your love above all else' said he.
-
-"'What do you seek?' she cried again, springing away, confronting him
-with a savage crouching intensity.  'Faith?  Happiness?  Peace?  All are
-here.  My people will honour you, for I am noble in the hills.  What do
-you seek?  Ask, and I will give!'
-
-"He leaned toward her, held her at arm's length, returned her gaze.  I
-heard him heave a sigh.
-
-"'It is because you do not love!' said she quite low  'Before Allah, am
-I not fair?  Why have I not your love?  Look--we are alone.  See how I
-hold you, feel my heart here, behold my eyes--ah!'  Her face was close
-to his.  'If love lay in your heart, you could not stand thus' she
-whispered.
-
-"'Stop!' he cried  'You cannot see...'
-
-"'I cannot see, my eyes are dim with love!'
-
-"He thrust her away suddenly, as if in fear. 'Listen' said he in a dead
-voice  'For many years I have followed a woman who would not love me.
-To the ends of the earth I have followed her, until I am weary, and
-heartsick, and must forget.  I have left my home, I have forsaken my
-friends.  But now I must return.  Dear heart' said he 'if I were young
-and full of hope, I would not stand here idly, I would stay with you.
-But I have nothing left to offer.  An old heart--broken--a brain without
-fire...'
-
-"'I will make well the heart, and fire the brain!' she cried.
-
-"He swayed toward her, met her in a brief embrace--then broke away.  She
-gave a little cry. 'You will not?' said she  'I cannot ask again'
-
-"'Dear, it is not to hurt you...' he began 'Why won't you understand?'
-He covered his face with his hands  'Oh, God, why can't I make you
-understand?'
-
-"She pointed toward the house.  'It is because your friend has come'
-said she fiercely  'Never before have you been as to-night.  Never
-before have you refused me.  He brings you memory, and now you think of
-home.  I should have killed him when I stood at his side!'  She fell
-back a step, a savage figure, magnificently tall 'So--you have chosen'
-said she  'This which I offer, you throw down.  What is it that you
-seek? What will you find?  Is love so strong in your land, are nights
-like this, is happiness so deep? In convent-school I learned otherwise'
-He put out his hand; she drew away like a wild creature. 'No!  It is
-done' she cried.
-
-"A moment passed.  He stood irresolute, the plaything of fate, while she
-devoured him with her eyes.  Then, with a swift motion, she left him
-standing in the grass, and ran toward the shadow. He started to follow.
-She must have turned at the border of the jungle; I couldn't see her
-clearly, but she seemed to make a violent gesture, and the moonlight
-struck sharply on a bracelet that she wore"
-
-
-
-
-                                  *VI*
-
-
-"Bert spent the following day with me aboard the ship; I had decided to
-remain another night in Anjer.  We found much to talk about, but didn't
-approach the incident outside my window that morning; although I'd felt
-certain that he, not suspecting my awareness, would broach the subject.
-In fact, I more than once adroitly guided the conversation in this
-direction; but his mouth was closed.  This gave me both alarm and
-satisfaction; at least, he took the affair with the seriousness that it
-deserved.
-
-"Late in the afternoon, as we sat here under a little patch of awning
-spread from the spanker boom, we sighted a small barque to the westward,
-coming up the straits.  She'd just appeared beyond the lower point, some
-three or four miles distant. Watching her idly through the glass---I had
-a powerful telescope--I seemed to find something familiar about her; and
-a little later, when she had drifted another mile nearer, I suddenly
-recognized the craft.  'That's Halsted, in his little packet' I remarked
-'Her name's the _Senegal_.  You must have seen her before, if you've
-been here over six months.  He makes two trips a year'
-
-"Bert took the glass from my hand.  'I can't remember' said he after a
-moment's scrutiny 'Ships look all alike to me.  Where has she come from?
-You seem to know about her'
-
-"'Why, Australia, of course!' I exclaimed, suddenly remembering his own
-point of departure for Anjer  'You must have seen this little barque in
-Melbourne, if you were familiar with the waterfront.  Halsted runs a
-sort of packet service from there to Singapore'
-
-"'Halsted, Halsted' said Bert  'No, I think I've never met anyone of
-that name--certainly not there.  Look, Nichols, he seems to have run
-into a strip of calm'
-
-"'Yes, and that strip of calm will spread until it covers the straits' I
-answered  'I know the box he's in--he's just about an hour too late.
-There's a nasty current off the point, with a tide-rip on the ebb.
-He'll drift away from us for several hours, then slip back in the night,
-when he picks up the land breeze'
-
-"After supper we went ashore.  I planned to sail in the morning, but
-should be down the China Sea again in three months' time.  Bert had
-promised to make his arrangements in the meanwhile, and to leave Anjer
-with me on my return.  I'd urged him to come at once, and would have
-waited a day or two longer, but he wouldn't listen to it.  It was
-another calm, hazy evening, with no wind on the water, but a faint
-languorous breeze among the palms.  We sat on the verandah planning the
-future, if you please; he seemed to want to talk about the world, and I
-felt it best to encourage the inclination.
-
-"'Well, old man' said he at last  'I've got to turn in.  I'm weary to
-the bone--didn't sleep well last night, at all.  This has been an
-exciting time for me, you know'
-
-"'Go ahead, and leave me here to finish out my smoke' I answered  'I'll
-be all right--I know my way about'
-
-"To tell the truth, I welcomed the opportunity to sit for a while alone,
-in the midst of the luminous night, close to the land.  Perhaps I might
-achieve the hint of a solution; I was baffled and pained by the
-tremendous vital difficulties I'd observed.  The wind had risen; it
-swept down the hillside in a solid breath of sweetness, softly clashing
-together the broad leaves of the palms. Halsted, it occurred to me in a
-wandering moment, would now be creeping up under the lee of the land.  I
-drew my chair to the edge of the verandah.  The scene of the previous
-night stood vividly before me; I couldn't keep my eyes away from that
-region of heavy shadow, where she stood at my elbow undecided whether to
-kill me or let me go.  Suddenly I started; was there a movement in the
-shadow?  I watched it narrowly---and, by Jove, in a moment she actually
-materialized there, as if in answer to my thoughts; advanced, became
-substantial, and moved into the moonlight, coming swiftly in my
-direction.  I remained seated, chained to my chair.  She came to the
-railing and put her hand lightly on my arm, as if administering caution.
-Her eyes were level with mine.
-
-"'I must see you' said she in a repressed voice 'I have waited for him
-to go'
-
-"'Me?' I exclaimed, for my first thought had been that she'd mistaken
-the figure on the verandah  'What do you want of me?'
-
-"'Like you, I am his friend' she answered simply.
-
-"'Yes?...' I parried.  Face to face with her, I saw how beautiful she
-was.  She had the golden Malay skin, dusky, full, smooth as dark marble;
-across her brow she wore an ornament of ivory and carved blackwood; her
-breast was bare in a long slit, shadowed like the face of a quiet pool.
-The moonlight revealed her, the jungle stood at her back: and through
-her hand on my arm I felt the blood of the East, rustling like water in
-the hills after a tropical rain.
-
-"I stood up abruptly.  'All are his friends' said I.  She lifted her
-eyebrows.  'Has it been thus?' she asked with meaning.  I nodded,
-marvelling meanwhile at her admirable directness; a woman pure as
-diamond, true as steel.  She lived, like light, in instantaneous
-collimation.  'Yes' said I 'he has found many friends'
-
-"She pondered the fact.  'But none have loved him with the heart?'  Was
-it a question, or a statement?  'Many' I answered 'but none gained the
-answer'  'None?' she asked, searchingly 'You know, and I can only repeat
-what is true' said I  'His heart is given to one who wears it on a chain
-for play'
-
-"She trembled at the thought.  'Where is she?' she demanded.  I told her
-that I didn't know.  'Not ... home?' she asked  'Not there?...'  She
-stretched out a hand vaguely. 'Oh, no' said I, relieved to be able to
-speak an open word  'Then it is not for her that he goes?' she cried,
-pathetically relieved.  'No' said I again.  She leaned toward me, as if
-to make a critical examination.  'Why have you come, to change and take
-him from me?' she asked bitterly. 'I came by chance, without knowing' I
-answered 'It is the hand of destiny'  Throwing back her head, with a
-passionate gesture she flung an uplifted arm across her eyes.  'Is she
-so beautiful?' she cried in a low voice, like one pleading with fate.
-
-"I heard a slight movement behind me, and whirled, to find Bert standing
-in the doorway.  He gazed from one to the other of us in troubled
-silence; then crossed the porch and stood beside me at the rail.  She
-heard his step, and turned, a superb figure, her uplifted arm still
-shading her eyes.
-
-"'Nichols, I'm awfully sorry...' he began weakly.
-
-"'Ah!' she cried, her arrow-like candour tearing the veil he would have
-dropped.  She went to him swiftly.  'All day I have wandered in the
-hills' said she  'All day I have thought of your choice.  I have asked
-the forest, why? and the mountains, why? and the great ocean, why?  I
-have held up my hands to the white clouds, to the sun of life and
-wisdom, asking why, why?  Now I have come to you--and him--to ask you,
-why? My Love' said she softly 'I think it is that you do not understand,
-and your words fall without knowledge.  You are the light of life to me,
-and the breath of the body.  I cannot live alone.  You have taken my
-heart from my breast, and now would carry it with you to a strange land,
-where it would perish and die.  But these are words--you cannot mean
-them.  You will not go.  See how I hold you fast!'
-
-"He gazed at her in trepidation.  'It is decided' said he  'When the
-ship returns, I am to go'  'Then I shall follow!' she told him.  'I
-shall go with you ... home'  He snatched his hands away.  'Oh, no, you
-can't!' he shouted 'It isn't what you think'  'Blind one' she answered
-'would I not be near you?'  He started violently; she took his lands
-again.  'Then stay with me, here in my land, which waits for us alone.
-Stay with me in these nights that never end!'
-
-"He sighed profoundly.  'It would soon be over....'
-
-"'When it had ended, we could die' she whispered 'I would gladly die
-thus, having lived for a time.  Stay with me till love grows cold!'
-
-"He pushed her off like one dazed and distracted.  For a long while he
-stood perfectly motionless.  'Stay!' she whispered once more 'Be
-quiet--let me think' said he.  She pressed against the railing.  'Look
-down!' said she 'To-night we live--but there may be no to-morrow!'
-While she was speaking, clear and sharp across the water came the rattle
-of a falling anchor-chain.
-
-"He seemed to stiffen where he stood.  His face in the moonlight looked
-sterner than its wont, set in the struggle that came hard to him.  'No!'
-he cried in a loud voice.  The word seemed to echo among the palms, a
-tragic whisper of universal negation.  She gazed at him a moment in
-naked terror--then tottered and sank slowly to the ground, uttering
-little stifled cries.  I saw him leap the railing and kneel beside her;
-but I didn't wait for more.  I'd stayed too long already; and what was
-coming would be harder than what had gone.
-
-"It must have been fully an hour later, after I'd lost the path and
-threshed around in the jungle until I was tired out, that I succeeded in
-regaining the bungalow.  Bert was sitting on the porch, alone.  I
-dropped into a chair beside him.  'Too bad, old man' said he, observing
-the state of my white linens  'It was decent of you, though'
-
-"'Yes, we're a decent breed, aren't we?' I snapped in reply  'Anyway,
-let's not balance a heart against an hour of discomfort and a suit of
-clothes'  He turned his head and looked me over.  'I can't say that I
-blame you' he exclaimed 'But honestly, old man, I think she will forget'
-'I don't' said I  'Did you?'  He winced, but I went on angrily  'You
-ought to know better by this time.  You've had a double experience
-now--the chaser and the chased....'  'Hold on, Nichols!' he interrupted
-'You're getting unpardonable.  What would you have me do?  Do you want
-me to stay here and live with her?' 'No, I don't!' I shouted  'I merely
-want a revision of life and human nature--no one to be unhappy, no love
-to go unrequited, no heart to be thrown away'  He laughed.  'I'd like
-that, too' said he.
-
-"The silence lengthened between us, as we gazed across the placid
-harbour, thinking our own thoughts.  In the brilliant moonlight, every
-object in the roadstead was plainly discernible.  'I see your friend has
-arrived' said Bert suddenly  'He's anchored pretty close to your vessel.
-By Jove, that must have been his chain..'  'It was' I answered, musing
-on the fortuitousness of events that shape our lives.  'Now he seems to
-be getting a boat into the water.  Where are your night glasses?'  In a
-moment Bert brought them to me.  Aboard the new arrival there was an
-unaccountable flurry, but I couldn't make out the scene below the rail.
-In a short while, however, a boat appeared out of the shadow there, and
-swam toward us through the bright moonlight. 'I wonder why he's coming
-ashore, at this time of night' I murmured.  'Can't imagine' Bert
-replied.  Soon we heard the chunking of oars in the rowlocks, and two or
-three quick commands. The boat was nearing the beach.  She passed for a
-moment behind the point of the jetty.  Now she had reached the landing.
-A confusion of voices broke out, loud and jarring, pitched in a key of
-anger and violence.  Then, cutting the stillness like a knife, came a
-sudden sharp cry.
-
-"My heart leaped into my mouth.  'My God, did you hear that?' asked
-Bert, breathlessly. 'Keep still--it sounded like a woman's voice' said
-I.  We leaned across the rail, straining our eyes, but couldn't see what
-was taking place; the landing lay too close under the trees.  After the
-cry, an absolute silence had fallen.  This lasted a full minute.  Then a
-man's voice started up, the same angry, jarring tone 'Give way, boys!'
-Almost immediately, we heard the sound of the oars again.
-
-"The unexpectedness of the occurrence had held us spellbound; we stood
-gazing at each other like two wooden images.  Then, in the same instant,
-we found our voices, began to confer hurriedly, and started on the run
-for the centre of the verandah, where a broad flight of steps led down
-to the jetty path.  At the head of the path we both halted as if
-transfixed.  Someone was coming up from the landing.  The moonlight
-plainly showed it to be a woman.  She advanced slowly, stopping now and
-then, staggering as she walked.  When she drew nearer, we could see that
-she was hatless and empty-handed.  She walked like a somnambulist,
-gazing fixedly on the ground before her, now and then holding out a hand
-as if to feel the way.  At the last turn of the path, she stopped and
-raised her head.  Bert, at my side, made a low strangling sound.
-Evidently discovering us, she started forward again. Her face was quite
-terrible.  All hope seemed gone from it, like the dead face of a suicide
-that I once saw; her eyes stared at us blankly, and she clutched with
-one hand at the bosom of her dress.
-
-"'Who is there?' she asked brokenly.
-
-"Bert left my side and flung himself toward her.  'Helen!' he cried.
-She would have fallen, but he caught her in his arms.  'Helen!' said he
-again, with his face close to hers.
-
-"'Bert?' she asked in eager fearfulness.  Her low voice seemed to tear
-the heart.  She gazed at him long and deep, while desperation turned to
-wonder in her eyes.
-
-"For the second time that evening I fled the scene of life's amazing
-hazard.  This time I hurried down the path with all haste, making for
-the jetty; by shouting, I should be able to raise the ship and have a
-boat sent ashore for me.  As I glanced back at the corner, I saw Bert
-help the woman up the steps.  I thought I heard her sobbing; but, in a
-moment, I realized that the sound came from another direction.  Off
-among the trees, in the heavy shadow, someone was uttering smothered,
-choking cries.  I broke into a run.  The ways of the land were getting
-too damnably complicated altogether; I wanted to surround myself again
-with a safe strip of water.
-
-
-
-
-                                 *VII*
-
-
-Nichols reached for another cigar.  "And that's the way he found her" he
-went on  "For it wouldn't be true to say that she had found him; until
-the moment in front of the bungalow when he took her in his arms, she
-hadn't dreamed that he was there.
-
-"I heard the final chapter of their romance while we were going up the
-China Sea; I'd waited for him, after all, and had taken them both north
-with me.  After Bert had left Melbourne, she had missed him, and had
-awakened to the realization that she'd driven him out of her life.  So
-she discovered what it meant to her, what she'd been doing, and bowed
-before the law that through any wrong keeps the heart pure and the
-spirit ready to fulfil itself.  She had determined to follow, but
-couldn't locate him.  Some said he was in Singapore, some in Hong Kong;
-the consensus of many vague rumours, however, agreed that he had gone
-north into the China Sea region. It was familiar ground to her; she had
-friends there, and sources of information.  She's always known of
-Halsted's packet service; the next time he came around, she had taken
-passage in the _Senegal_ for an indeterminate trip up the coast.
-
-"Unfortunately, Halsted also knew of her.  He was a beastly sort of
-character.  The moment they got outside he grew familiar, and soon was
-making forthright approaches.  She was the only woman on the vessel; the
-other passenger was an elderly man, to whom she couldn't hope to look
-for protection.  She, of course, was a woman of experience, as capable
-of protecting herself as is humanly possible; but there are limits to
-the power of the mind over brute force, when passion is engaged.  Make
-no mistake--her aversion from him was virginal, and nothing could have
-induced her submission.
-
-"'I took my revolver on deck one morning, to show him my marksmanship'
-said she  'I shot a bird on the end of the spanker gaff.  Then I got him
-on one side, and told him what I would do.  I told him that I should be
-constantly on the watch, and that I would shoot him dead if he came near
-me.  It was the only way--but I knew he was a coward'
-
-"So this was the situation on board the _Senegal_--on the one hand
-defiance, on the other baulked and fermenting desire.  Halsted watched
-her as a cat watches a mouse, trying to catch her off guard.  Throughout
-the afternoon while they had been coming up the straits, even while my
-glass had been looking them over, the silent battle had been going on.
-The presence of the land had filled her with nameless apprehension.
-Then they had run into the calm; in this condition, the supper hour had
-arrived.  She had waited on deck until she thought the others would be
-nearly finished; when she entered the forward cabin, she saw that she
-had waited too long.  The mate and the old gentleman had gone on deck
-forward; Halsted sat there alone.  She had to pass him to reach her
-seat.  As she attempted to slip by, he rose suddenly and crushed her in
-his arms. The Chinese steward in the pantry turned his back on the
-scene.
-
-"'My hand fell on a table knife' said she  'I fought him with
-it--succeeded in cutting him badly about the hands.  The blood
-frightened him; he had to let me go.  I've never seen a human being in
-such a dreadful rage.  He swore he wouldn't keep me on board an hour
-longer'
-
-"The rage had persisted; as soon as the sails had been furled, after
-dropping the anchor, he had put a boat overboard and bundled her into
-it, bag and baggage--well he knew that she was in no position to make
-trouble for him.  She had thought of trying to attract the attention of
-the other vessel, but finally had decided that she had better take her
-chances on land.  She had supposed there were white people ashore; at
-the landing, where her things had been pitched at her feet, she had
-asked Halsted the way to the settlement.  When he'd told her brutally
-what an abandoned place it was, she'd suddenly lost heart. It was then
-that we had heard her cry out.
-
-"'Go up to the consulate bungalow' Halsted had told her  'See the
-lights?  Somebody must live up there'
-
-"So she had climbed the hill, trusting to luck, which had already
-arranged the scene.  It might have been vastly different, you know.
-Suppose she had found him with the native woman?  Well, suppose it--the
-renunciation would merely have changed hands.  Inexorable formula!--for
-them, one or the other; for him, heads I win, tails you lose"
-
-
-
-
-                                 *VIII*
-
-
-Nichols went to the rail, and stood for some time in silence, facing the
-land.  "And I have seen the other" said he slowly  "It was about a year
-later that my course led me again through Sunda Straits, and I arrived
-at Anjer on another evening of moonlight and stillness and awakened
-memory.  After the anchor was down I ordered a boat to be set overboard,
-and went ashore in the late evening to revisit the bungalow.  As I went
-up the path, the shadows seemed to start and move about me, and a
-wandering breeze stirred the palm trees with a quick rustle as of
-departing feet.  I found the wreck of a rattan chair standing on the
-verandah, pulled it to the railing, and sat there a long while facing
-the oval of grass flooded with moonlight, the fixed scene, as it were,
-where the actors of this unseen drama had stalked through their
-extravagant business and said their futile words.
-
-"Nothing had changed; I seemed as if I had left the place but yesterday.
-I turned to the heavy shadow where I had seen and heard her last, the
-shadow that must have marked the end of a hillside trail; and it wasn't
-surprising to me, but only natural, to see her standing there once more,
-her form drawn back as if from a sight she didn't dare behold.  In a
-moment the tense figure moved.  She walked like a tiger, with a
-crouching step of absolute grace, cautious yet unafraid. Crossing the
-oval, she came directly to the railing. I got up hastily, in excitement
-and alarm; and we faced each other without speaking for quite a period.
-
-"'You?...' said she at last in a low voice, drawing back.  Her hand
-tightened on the rail. She was regally beautiful.
-
-"'For what do you wait?' I asked, striving to be calm.
-
-"She threw down her arms with a violent gesture.  'A word, a message!'
-she cried  'Can you tell me nothing?  Has he come?'
-
-"'He is far away' I answered.
-
-"She put her hand on mine.  'You are his friend' said she  'I do not
-blame you now; I see that it rested with him alone.  But keep nothing
-from me.  Has he sent no word by you?'
-
-"'He does not know that I have come' said I.
-
-"'Ah, I have waited, night upon night!' she cried  'Whenever ships stop,
-I have waited here--in darkness, in rain--always!--thinking to see you,
-or that he might come, or that a message.... Will he not come?  Tell
-me!'
-
-"'He will never come' said I.
-
-"She drew her hand away, and stepped back sharply.  Her voice rang out,
-fierce with hate. 'He was a child.  The woman took him!  Tell me,
-why?...'
-
-"'The woman was his wife' I felt obliged to say.
-
-"'Enough!' she cried.  Her form became rigid, as if every muscle were
-stretched to the point of breaking.  Suddenly she relaxed, and turned to
-me for the last time.
-
-"'He is happy?' she asked quietly.
-
-"I nodded--for the moment I couldn't speak.
-
-"'She loves him?'
-
-"Again I nodded.
-
-"Her voice caught at the next question, but rallied bravely.  'He loves
-her?--you are sure?...'
-
-"I cursed myself for having come--but there could be no kindness in
-sustaining the delusion. 'I am certain' I answered  'He will never tire
-of her.  He loves her better than all the world'
-
-"She gave a quick cry, like one who has received a mortal wound.  Before
-I could recognize the significance of the moment, she had moved swiftly
-into the open.  For an instant she stood with arms outstretched; but not
-until the dagger flashed above her breast did I see what she held in her
-hand.  When I reached her she'd fallen in the rank grass, and life had
-gone.
-
-"And that's the way I left her, a figure very beautiful, crouching low
-as if to spring, the tall grass closing over her, the mystery dissolved
-in mystery.  Aha!--these high spirits, this gruelling difficulty of
-life.  But she, you'll note, had solved the difficulty, had met it
-boldly and triumphantly, with the master stroke that levels fate itself
-to the dust.  As for the others, they had solved it, too, though not so
-keenly, had triumphed, though not so magnificently--had gone away, had
-found their home, were happy, for a little longer....  What did it
-signify?"
-
-
-
-
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