II
HE SHOOK hands with me: "Well, there you are, on
your own, appointed officially under my re-
sponsibility."
He was actually walking with me to the door.
What a distance off it seemed! I moved like a
man in bonds. But we reached it at last. I opened
it with the sensation of dealing with mere dream-
stuff, and then at the last moment the fellowship
of seamen asserted itself, stronger than the differ-
ence of age and station. It asserted itself in
Captain Ellis' voice.
"Good-bye--and good luck to you," he said so
heartily that I could only give him a grateful
glance. Then I turned and went out, never to see
him again in my life. I had not made three steps
into the outer office when I heard behind my back
a gruff, loud, authoritative voice, the voice of our
deputy-Neptune.
It was addressing the head Shipping-Master
who, having let me in, had, apparently, remained
hovering in the middle distance ever since
"Mr. R., let the harbour launch have steam up to
take the captain here on board the Melita at half-
past nine to-night."
I was amazed at the startled alacrity of R's
"Yes, sir." He ran before me out on the landing.
My new dignity sat yet so lightly on me that I was
not aware that it was I, the Captain, the object of
this last graciousness. It seemed as if all of a sud-
den a pair of wings had grown on my shoulders. I
merely skimmed along the polished floor.
But R. was impressed.
"I say!" he exclaimed on the landing, while the
Malay crew of the steam-launch standing by looked
stonily at the man for whom they were going to be
kept on duty so late, away from their gambling,
from their girls, or their pure domestic joys. "I
say! His own launch. What have you done to
him?"
His stare was full of respectful curiosity. I was
quite confounded.
"Was it for me? I hadn't the slightest notion,"
I stammered out.
He nodded many times. "Yes. And the last
person who had it before you was a Duke. So,
there!"
I think he expected me to faint on the spot.
But I was in too much of a hurry for emotional
displays. My feelings were already in such a whirl
that this staggering information did not seem to
make the slightest difference. It merely fell into
the seething cauldron of my brain, and I carried it
off with me after a short but effusive passage of
leave-taking with R.
The favour of the great throws an aureole round
the fortunate object of its selection. That ex-
cellent man enquired whether he could do anything
for me. He had known me only by sight, and he
was well aware he would never see me again; I was,
in common with the other seamen of the port,
merely a subject for official writing, filling up of
forms with all the artificial superiority of a man of
pen and ink to the men who grapple with realities
outside the consecrated walls of official buildings.
What ghosts we must have been to him! Mere
symbols to juggle with in books and heavy
registers, without brains and muscles and per-
plexities; something hardly useful and decidedly
inferior.
And he--the office hours being over--wanted to
know if he could be of any use to me!
I ought--properly speaking--I ought to have
been moved to tears. But I did not even think of it.
It was merely another miraculous manifestation of
that day of miracles. I parted from him as if he
were a mere symbol. I floated down the staircase.
I floated out of the official and imposing portal. I
went on floating along.
I use that word rather than the word "flew," be-
cause I have a distinct impression that, though up-
lifted by my aroused youth, my movements were
deliberate enough. To that mixed white, brown,
and yellow portion of mankind, out abroad on their
own affairs, I presented the appearance of a man
walking rather sedately. And nothing in the way
of abstraction could have equalled my deep de-
tachment from the forms and colours of this world.
It was, as it were, final.
And yet, suddenly, I recognized Hamilton. I
recognized him without effort, without a shock,
without a start. There he was, strolling toward
the Harbour Office with his stiff, arrogant dignity.
His red face made him noticeable at a distance. It
flamed, over there, on the shady side of the street.
He had perceived me, too. Something (uncon-
scious exuberance of spirits perhaps) moved me to
wave my hand to him elaborately. This lapse
from good taste happened before I was aware that
I was capable of it.
The impact of my impudence stopped him short,
much as a bullet might have done. I verily believe
he staggered, though as far as I could see he didn't
actually fall. I had gone past in a moment and did
not turn my head. I had forgotten his existence.
The next ten minutes might have been ten
seconds or ten centuries for all my consciousness
had to do with it. People might have been falling
dead around me, houses crumbling, guns firing,
I wouldn't have known. I was thinking: "By
Jove! I have got it." IT being the command. It
had come about in a way utterly unforeseen in my
modest day-dreams.
I perceived that my imagination had been run-
ning in conventional channels and that my hopes
had always been drab stuff. I had envisaged a
command as a result of a slow course of promotion
in the employ of some highly respectable firm.
The reward of faithful service. Well, faithful
service was all right. One would naturally give
that for one's own sake, for the sake of the ship,
for the love of the life of one's choice; not for the
sake of the reward.
There is something distasteful in the notion of a
reward.
And now here I had my command, absolutely in
my pocket, in a way undeniable indeed, but most
unexpected; beyond my imaginings, outside all
reasonable expectations, and even notwithstanding
the existence of some sort of obscure intrigue to
keep it away from me. It is true that the intrigue
was feeble, but it helped the feeling of wonder--as
if I had been specially destined for that ship I did
not know, by some power higher than the prosaic
agencies of the commercial world.
A strange sense of exultation began to creep into
me. If I had worked for that command ten years
or more there would have been nothing of the kind.
I was a little frightened.
"Let us be calm," I said to myself.
Outside the door of the Officers' Home the
wretched Steward seemed to be waiting for me.
There was a broad flight of a few steps, and he ran
to and fro on the top of it as if chained there. A
distressed cur. He looked as though his throat
were too dry for him to bark.
I regret to say I stopped before going in. There
had been a revolution in my moral nature. He
waited open-mouthed, breathless, while I looked
at him for half a minute.
"And you thought you could keep me out of it,"
I said scathingly.
"You said you were going home," he squeaked
miserably. "You said so. You said so."
"I wonder what Captain Ellis will have to say
to that excuse," I uttered slowly with a sinister
meaning.
His lower jaw had been trembling all the time and
his voice was like the bleating of a sick goat. "You
have given me away? You have done for me?"
Neither his distress nor yet the sheer absurdity
of it was able to disarm me. It was the first in-
stance of harm being attempted to be done to me
--at any rate, the first I had ever found out. And
I was still young enough, still too much on this side
of the shadow line, not to be surprised and indig-
nant at such things.
I gazed at him inflexibly. Let the beggar suffer.
He slapped his forehead and I passed in, pursued,
into the dining room, by his screech: "I always
said you'd be the death of me."
This clamour not only overtook me, but went
ahead as it were on to the verandah and brought
out Captain Giles.
He stood before me in the doorway in all the
commonplace solidity of his wisdom. The gold
chain glittered on his breast. He clutched a
smouldering pipe.
I extended my hand to him warmly and he
seemed surprised, but did respond heartily enough
in the end, with a faint smile of superior knowledge
which cut my thanks short as if with a knife. I
don't think that more than one word came out.
And even for that one, judging by the temperature
of my face, I had blushed as if for a bad action.
Assuming a detached tone, I wondered how on
earth he had managed to spot the little underhand
game that had been going on.
He murmured complacently that there were but
few things done in the town that he could not see
the inside of. And as to this house, he had been
using it off and on for nearly ten years. Nothing
that went on in it could escape his great experience.
It had been no trouble to him. No trouble at all.
Then in his quiet, thick tone he wanted to know
if I had complained formally of the Steward's
action.
I said that I hadn't--though, indeed, it was not
for want of opportunity. Captain Ellis had gone
for me bald-headed in a most ridiculous fashion for
being out of the way when wanted.
"Funny old gentleman," interjected Captain
Giles. "What did you say to that?"
"I said simply that I came along the very mo-
ment I heard of his message. Nothing more. I
didn't want to hurt the Steward. I would scorn
to harm such an object. No. I made no com-
plaint, but I believe he thinks I've done so. Let
him think. He's got a fright he won't forget in a
hurry, for Captain Ellis would kick him out into
the middle of Asia. . . ."
"Wait a moment," said Captain Giles, leaving
me suddenly. I sat down feeling very tired,
mostly in my head. Before I could start a train of
thought he stood again before me, murmuring the
excuse that he had to go and put the fellow's mind
at ease.
I looked up with surprise. But in reality I was
indifferent. He explained that he had found the
Steward lying face downward on the horsehair sofa.
He was all right now.
"He would not have died of fright," I said con-
temptuously.
"No. But he might have taken an overdose out
of one of them little bottles he keeps in his room,"
Captain Giles argued seriously. "The confounded
fool has tried to poison himself once--a few years
ago."
"Really," I said without emotion. "He doesn't
seem very fit to live, anyhow."
"As to that, it may be said of a good many."
"Don't exaggerate like this!" I protested,
laughing irritably. "But I wonder what this part
of the world would do if you were to leave off look-
ing after it, Captain Giles? Here you have got me
a command and saved the Steward's life in one
afternoon. Though why you should have taken all
that interest in either of us is more than I can
understand."
Captain Giles remained silent for a minute.
Then gravely:
"He's not a bad steward really. He can find a
good cook, at any rate. And, what's more, he can
keep him when found. I remember the cooks we
had here before his time! . . ."
I must have made a movement of impatience,
because he interrupted himself with an apology for
keeping me yarning there, while no doubt I needed
all my time to get ready.
What I really needed was to be alone for a bit.
I seized this opening hastily. My bedroom was a
quiet refuge in an apparently uninhabited wing of
the building. Having absolutely nothing to do
(for I had not unpacked my things), I sat down on
the bed and abandoned myself to the influences of
the hour. To the unexpected influences. . . .
And first I wondered at my state of mind. Why
was I not more surprised? Why? Here I was, in-
vested with a command in the twinkling of an eye,
not in the common course of human affairs, but
more as if by enchantment. I ought to have been
lost in astonishment. But I wasn't. I was very
much like people in fairy tales. Nothing ever
astonishes them. When a fully appointed gala
coach is produced out of a pumpkin to take
her to a ball, Cinderella does not exclaim. She
gets in quietly and drives away to her high for-
tune.
Captain Ellis (a fierce sort of fairy) had pro-
duced a command out of a drawer almost as un-
expectedly as in a fairy tale. But a command is an
abstract idea, and it seemed a sort of "lesser
marvel" till it flashed upon me that it involved the
concrete existence of a ship.
A ship! My ship! She was mine, more abso-
lutely mine for possession and care than anything
in the world; an object of responsibility and de-
votion. She was there waiting for me, spell-bound,
unable to move, to live, to get out into the world
(till I came), like an enchanted princess. Her call
had come to me as if from the clouds. I had never
suspected her existence. I didn't know how she
looked, I had barely heard her name, and yet we
were indissolubly united for a certain portion of our
future, to sink or swim together!
A sudden passion of anxious impatience rushed
through my veins, gave me such a sense of the in-
tensity of existence as I have never felt before or
since. I discovered how much of a seaman I was,
in heart, in mind, and, as it were, physically--a
man exclusively of sea and ships; the sea the only
world that counted, and the ships, the test of man-
liness, of temperament, of courage and fidelity--
and of love.
I had an exquisite moment. It was unique also.
Jumping up from my seat, I paced up and down
my room for a long time. But when I came down-
stairs I behaved with sufficient composure. I
only couldn't eat anything at dinner.
Having declared my intention not to drive but
to walk down to the quay, I must render the
wretched Steward justice that he bestirred himself
to find me some coolies for the luggage. They de-
parted, carrying all my worldly possessions (except
a little money I had in my pocket) slung from a long
pole. Captain Giles volunteered to walk down
with me.
We followed the sombre, shaded alley across the
Esplanade. It was moderately cool there under
the trees. Captain Giles remarked, with a sudden
laugh: "I know who's jolly thankful at having seen
the last of you."
I guessed that he meant the Steward. The fellow
had borne himself to me in a sulkily frightened
manner at the last. I expressed my wonder that
he should have tried to do me a bad turn for no
reason at all.
"Don't you see that what he wanted was to get
rid of our friend Hamilton by dodging him in front
of you for that job? That would have removed
him for good. See?"
"Heavens!" I exclaimed, feeling humiliated
somehow. "Can it be possible? What a fool he
must be! That overbearing, impudent loafer!
Why! He couldn't. . . . And yet he's nearly
done it, I believe; for the Harbour Office was bound
to send somebody."
"Aye. A fool like our Steward can be dangerous
sometimes," declared Captain Giles sententiously.
"Just because he is a fool," he added, imparting
further instruction in his complacent low tones.
"For," he continued in the manner of a set demon-
stration, "no sensible person would risk being
kicked out of the only berth between himself and
starvation just to get rid of a simple annoyance--
a small worry. Would he now?"
"Well, no," I conceded, restraining a desire to
laugh at that something mysteriously earnest in
delivering the conclusions of his wisdom as though
it were the product of prohibited operations. "But
that fellow looks as if he were rather crazy. He
must be."
"As to that, I believe everybody in the world is a
little mad," he announced quietly.
"You make no exceptions?" I inquired, just to
hear his manner.
"Why! Kent says that even of you."
"Does he?" I retorted, extremely embittered
all at once against my former captain. "There's
nothing of that in the written character from him
which I've got in my pocket. Has he given you
any instances of my lunacy?"
Captain Giles explained in a conciliating tone
that it had been only a friendly remark in refer-
ence to my abrupt leaving the ship for no apparent
reason.
I muttered grumpily: "Oh! leaving his ship,"
and mended my pace. He kept up by my side in
the deep gloom of the avenue as if it were his con-
scientious duty to see me out of the colony as an
undesirable character. He panted a little, which
was rather pathetic in a way. But I was not
moved. On the contrary. His discomfort gave
me a sort of malicious pleasure.
Presently I relented, slowed down, and said:
"What I really wanted was to get a fresh grip.
I felt it was time. Is that so very mad?"
He made no answer. We were issuing from the
avenue. On the bridge over the canal a dark, ir-
resolute figure seemed to be awaiting something or
somebody.
It was a Malay policeman, barefooted, in his
blue uniform. The silver band on his little round
cap shone dimly in the light of the street lamp. He
peered in our direction timidly.
Before we could come up to him he turned about
and walked in front of us in the direction of the
jetty. The distance was some hundred yards; and
then I found my coolies squatting on their heels.
They had kept the pole on their shoulders, and all
my worldly goods, still tied to the pole, were resting
on the ground between them. As far as the eye
could reach along the quay there was not another
soul abroad except the police peon, who saluted us.
It seems he had detained the coolies as suspicious
characters, and had forbidden them the jetty. But
at a sign from me he took off the embargo with
alacrity. The two patient fellows, rising together
with a faint grunt, trotted off along the planks, and
I prepared to take my leave of Captain Giles, who
stood there with an air as though his mission were
drawing to a close. It could not be denied that he
had done it all. And while I hesitated about an
appropriate sentence he made himself heard:
"I expect you'll have your hands pretty full of
tangled-up business."
I asked him what made him think so; and he an-
swered that it was his general experience of the
world. Ship a long time away from her port,
owners inaccessible by cable, and the only man who
could explain matters dead and buried.
"And you yourself new to the business in a way,"
he concluded in a sort of unanswerable tone.
"Don't insist," I said. "I know it only too well.
I only wish you could impart to me some small
portion of your experience before I go. As it can't
be done in ten minutes I had better not begin to ask
you. There's that harbour launch waiting for me,
too. But I won't feel really at peace till I have that
ship of mine out in the Indian Ocean."
He remarked casually that from Bangkok to the
Indian Ocean was a pretty long step. And this
murmur, like a dim flash from a dark lantern,
showed me for a moment the broad belt of islands
and reefs between that unknown ship, which was
mine, and the freedom of the great waters of the
globe.
But I felt no apprehension. I was familiar
enough with the Archipelago by that time. Ex-
treme patience and extreme care would see me
through the region of broken land, of faint airs, and
of dead water to where I would feel at last my
command swing on the great swell and list over to
the great breath of regular winds, that would give
her the feeling of a large, more intense life. The
road would be long. All roads are long that lead
toward one's heart's desire. But this road my
mind's eye could see on a chart, professionally,
with all its complications and difficulties, yet simple
enough in a way. One is a seaman or one is not.
And I had no doubt of being one.
The only part I was a stranger to was the Gulf of
Siam. And I mentioned this to Captain Giles.
Not that I was concerned very much. It belonged
to the same region the nature of which I knew, into
whose very soul I seemed to have looked during the
last months of that existence with which I had
broken now, suddenly, as one parts with some en-
chanting company.
"The gulf . . . Ay! A funny piece of
water--that," said Captain Giles.
Funny, in this connection, was a vague word.
The whole thing sounded like an opinion uttered
by a cautious person mindful of actions for slander.
I didn't inquire as to the nature of that funni-
ness. There was really no time. But at the very
last he volunteered a warning.
"Whatever you do keep to the east side of it.
The west side is dangerous at this time of the year.
Don't let anything tempt you over. You'll find
nothing but trouble there."
Though I could hardly imagine what could tempt
me to involve my ship amongst the currents and
reefs of the Malay shore, I thanked him for the
advice.
He gripped my extended arm warmly, and the
end of our acquaintance came suddenly in the
words: "Good-night."
That was all he said: "Good-night." Nothing
more. I don't know what I intended to say, but
surprise made me swallow it, whatever it was. I
choked slightly, and then exclaimed with a sort of
nervous haste: "Oh! Good-night, Captain Giles,
good-night."
His movements were always deliberate, but his
back had receded some distance along the deserted
quay before I collected myself enough to follow his
example and made a half turn in the direction of
the jetty.
Only my movements were not deliberate. I
hurried down to the steps, and leaped into the
launch. Before I had fairly landed in her stern-
sheets the slim little craft darted away from the
jetty with a sudden swirl of her propeller and the
hard, rapid puffing of the exhaust in her vaguely
gleaming brass funnel amidships.
The misty churning at her stern was the only
sound in the world. The shore lay plunged in the
silence of the deeper slumber. I watched the town
recede still and soundless in the hot night, till the
abrupt hail, "Steam-launch, ahoy!" made me spin
round face forward. We were close to a white
ghostly steamer. Lights shone on her decks, in her
portholes. And the same voice shouted from her:
"Is that our passenger?"
"It is," I yelled.
Her crew had been obviously on the jump. I
could hear them running about. The modern
spirit of haste was loudly vocal in the orders to
"Heave away on the cable"--to "Lower the side-
ladder," and in urgent requests to me to "Come
along, sir! We have been delayed three hours for
you. . . . Our time is seven o'clock, you know!"
I stepped on the deck. I said "No! I don't
know." The spirit of modern hurry was embodied
in a thin, long-armed, long-legged man, with a
closely clipped gray beard. His meagre hand was
hot and dry. He declared feverishly:
"I am hanged if I would have waited another
five minutes Harbour-Master or no Harbour-
Master."
"That's your own business," I said. "I didn't
ask you to wait for me."
"I hope you don't expect any supper," he burst
out. "This isn't a boarding-house afloat. You are
the first passenger I ever had in my life and I hope
to goodness you will be the last."
I made no answer to this hospitable communi-
cation; and, indeed, he didn't wait for any, bolting
away on to his bridge to get his ship under way.
For the three days he had me on board he did not
depart from that half-hostile attitude. His ship
having been delayed three hours on my account he
couldn't forgive me for not being a more distin-
guished person. He was not exactly outspoken
about it, but that feeling of annoyed wonder was
peeping out perpetually in his talk.
He was absurd.
He was also a man of much experience, which he
liked to trot out; but no greater contrast with Cap-
tain Giles could have been imagined. He would
have amused me if I had wanted to be amused.
But I did not want to be amused. I was like a
lover looking forward to a meeting. Human hos-
tility was nothing to me. I thought of my un-
known ship. It was amusement enough, torment
enough, occupation enough.
He perceived my state, for his wits were suffi-
ciently sharp for that, and he poked sly fun at my
preoccupation in the manner some nasty, cynical
old men assume toward the dreams and illusions of
youth. I, on my side, refrained from questioning
him as to the appearance of my ship, though I
knew that being in Bangkok every fortnight or so he
must have known her by sight. I was not going to
expose the ship, my ship! to some slighting
reference.
He was the first really unsympathetic man I had
ever come in contact with. My education was far
from being finished, though I didn't know it. No!
I didn't know it.
All I knew was that he disliked me and had some
contempt for my person. Why? Apparently
because his ship had been delayed three hours on
my account. Who was I to have such a thing done
for me? Such a thing had never been done for him.
It was a sort of jealous indignation.
My expectation, mingled with fear, was wrought
to its highest pitch. How slow had been the days
of the passage and how soon they were over. One
morning, early, we crossed the bar, and while the
sun was rising splendidly over the flat spaces of the
land we steamed up the innumerable bends, passed
under the shadow of the great gilt pagoda, and
reached the outskirts of the town.
There it was, spread largely on both banks, the
Oriental capital which had as yet suffered no white
conqueror; an expanse of brown houses of bamboo,
of mats, of leaves, of a vegetable-matter style of
architecture, sprung out of the brown soil on the
banks of the muddy river. It was amazing to think
that in those miles of human habitations there was
not probably half a dozen pounds of nails. Some
of those houses of sticks and grass, like the nests of
an aquatic race, clung to the low shores. Others
seemed to grow out of the water; others again
floated in long anchored rows in the very middle of
the stream. Here and there in the distance, above
the crowded mob of low, brown roof ridges, towered
great piles of masonry, King's Palace, temples,
gorgeous and dilapidated, crumbling under the
vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, al-
most palpable, which seemed to enter one's breast
with the breath of one's nostrils and soak into one's
limbs through every pore of one's skin.
The ridiculous victim of jealousy had for some
reason or other to stop his engines just then. The
steamer drifted slowly up with the tide. Oblivious
of my new surroundings I walked the deck, in anx-
ious, deadened abstraction, a commingling of
romantic reverie with a very practical survey of
my qualifications. For the time was approaching
for me to behold my command and to prove my
worth in the ultimate test of my profession.
Suddenly I heard myself called by that imbe-
cile. He was beckoning me to come up on his
bridge.
I didn't care very much for that, but as it
seemed that he had something particular to say I
went up the ladder.
He laid his hand on my shoulder and gave me a slight turn,
pointing with his other arm at the same time.
"There! That's your ship, Captain," he said.
I felt a thump in my breast--only one, as if my
heart had then ceased to beat. There were ten or
more ships moored along the bank, and the one
he meant was partly hidden away from my sight by her
next astern. He said: "We'll drift abreast her in
a moment."
What was his tone? Mocking? Threatening?
Or only indifferent? I could not tell. I suspected
some malice in this unexpected manifestation of
interest.
He left me, and I leaned over the rail of the
bridge looking over the side. I dared not raise my
eyes. Yet it had to be done--and, indeed, I could
not have helped myself. I believe I trembled.
But directly my eyes had rested on my ship all
my fear vanished. It went off swiftly, like a bad
dream. Only that a dream leaves no shame be-
hind it, and that I felt a momentary shame at my
unworthy suspicions.
Yes, there she was. Her hull, her rigging filled
my eye with a great content. That feeling of life-
emptiness which had made me so restless for the
last few months lost its bitter plausibility, its evil
influence, dissolved in a flow of joyous emotion.
At first glance I saw that she was a high-class
vessel, a harmonious creature in the lines of her
fine body, in the proportioned tallness of her spars.
Whatever her age and her history, she had pre-
served the stamp of her origin. She was one of
those craft that, in virtue of their design and com-
plete finish, will never look old. Amongst her com-
panions moored to the bank, and all bigger than
herself, she looked like a creature of high breed--
an Arab steed in a string of cart-horses.
A voice behind me said in a nasty equivocal tone:
"I hope you are satisfied with her, Captain." I
did not even turn my head. It was the master of
the steamer, and whatever he meant, whatever he
thought of her, I knew that, like some rare women,
she was one of those creatures whose mere existence
is enough to awaken an unselfish delight. One
feels that it is good to be in the world in which she
has her being.
That illusion of life and character which charms
one in men's finest handiwork radiated from her.
An enormous bulk of teak-wood timber swung over
her hatchway; lifeless matter, looking heavier and
bigger than anything aboard of her. When they
started lowering it the surge of the tackle sent a
quiver through her from water-line to the trucks up
the fine nerves of her rigging, as though she had
shuddered at the weight. It seemed cruel to load
her so. . . .
Half an hour later, putting my foot on her deck
for the first time, I received the feeling of deep
physical satisfaction. Nothing could equal the
fullness of that moment, the ideal completeness of
that emotional experience which had come to me
without the preliminary toil and disenchantments
of an obscure career.
My rapid glance ran over her, enveloped, ap-
propriated the form concreting the abstract senti-
ment of my command. A lot of details perceptible
to a seaman struck my eye, vividly in that instant.
For the rest, I saw her disengaged from the material
conditions of her being. The shore to which she
was moored was as if it did not exist. What were
to me all the countries of the globe? In all the
parts of the world washed by navigable waters our
relation to each other would be the same--and
more intimate than there are words to express in
the language. Apart from that, every scene and
episode would be a mere passing show. The very
gang of yellow coolies busy about the main hatch
was less substantial than the stuff dreams are made
of. For who on earth would dream of Chinamen? . . .
I went aft, ascended the poop, where, under the
awning, gleamed the brasses of the yacht-like
fittings, the polished surfaces of the rails, the glass
of the skylights. Right aft two seamen, busy
cleaning the steering gear, with the reflected ripples
of light running playfully up their bent backs, went
on with their work, unaware of me and of the al-
most affectionate glance I threw at them in passing
toward the companion-way of the cabin.
The doors stood wide open, the slide was pushed
right back. The half-turn of the staircase cut off
the view of the lobby. A low humming ascended
from below, but it stopped abruptly at the sound of
my descending footsteps.
