textfiles/etext/FICTION/conrad-secret-555.txt

[obi/Joseph.Conrad/secret.sharer.txt]

Joseph Conrad: The Secret Sharer

                         I

  On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes
resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged
bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of
the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if
abandoned for ever by some nomad tribe of fishermen
now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was
no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could
reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting
ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its
foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid,
so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the
track of light from the westering, sun shone smoothly,
without that animated glitter which tells of an imper-
ceptible ripple. And when I turned my head to take
a parting glance at the tug which had just left us
anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the
flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with
a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor
half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of
the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to the
islets of the sea, two sma]l clumps of trees, one on
each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint,
marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just
left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward
journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger
and loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great
Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye
could rest from the vain task of exploring the monoto-
nous sweep of the horizon. Here and there gleams as
of a few scattered pieces of silver marked the windings
of the great river; and on the nearest of them, just
within the bar, the tug steaming right into the land be-
came lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as
though the impassive earth had swallowed her up
without an effort, without a tremor. My eye followed
the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there,
above the plain, according to the devious curves of the
stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I
lost it at last behind the miter-shaped hill of the great
pagodas. And then I was left alone. with my ship,
anchored at the head of the Gulf of Siam.

  She floated at the starting point of a long journey,
very still in an immense stillness, the shadows of her
spars flung far to the eastward by the setting sun. At
that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not
a sound in her -- and around us nothing moved, noth-
ing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the
air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless pause at
the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be
measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enter-
prise, the appointed task of both our existences to be
carried out, far from all human eyes, with only sky
and sea for spectators and for judges.

  There must have been some glare in the air to inter-
fere with one's sight, because it was only just before
the sun left us that my roaming eyes made out beyond
the highest ridges of the principal islet of the group
something which did away with the solemnity of
perfect solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on
swiftly; and with tropical suddenness a swarm of
stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lin-
gered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail
as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend. But, with all
that multitude of celestial bodies staring down at one,
the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone
for good. And there were also disturbing sounds by
this time -- voices, footsteps forward; the steward
flitted along the main-deck, a busily ministering spirit;
a hand bell tinkled urgently under the poop
deck....

  I found my two officers waiting for me near the
supper table, in the lighted cuddy. We sat down at
once, and as I helped the chief mate, I said:

  "Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside
the islands? I saw her mastheads above the ridge as
the sun went down."

  He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by
a terrible growth of whisker, and emitted his usual
ejaculations: "Bless my soul, sir! You don't say so!"

  My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young
man, grave beyond his years, I thought; but as our
eyes happened to meet I detected a slight quiver on
his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part to
encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be said,
too, that I knew very little of my officers. In conse-
quence of certain events of no particular significance,
except to myself, I had been appointed to the com-
mand only a fortnight before. Neither did I know
much of the hands forward. All these peoplc had been
together for eighteen months or so, and my position
was that of the only stranger on board. I mention this
because it has some bearing on what is to follow. But
what I felt most was my being a stranger to the ship;
and if all the truth must be told, I was somewhat of a
stranger to myself. The youngest man on board (bar-
ring the second mate), and untried as yet by a position
of the fullest responsibility, I was willing to take the
adequacy of the others for granted. They had simply
to be equal to their tasks, but I wondered how far I
should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of
one's own personality every man sets up for himself
secretly.

  Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible
effect of collaboration on the part of his round eyes
and frightful whiskers, was trying to evolve a theory
of the anchored ship. His dominant trait was to take
all things into earnest consideration. He was of a
painstaking turn of mind. As he used to say, he "liked
to account to himself" for practically everything that
came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion he had
found in his cabin a week before. The why and the
wherefore of that scorpion -- how it got on board and
came to select his room rather than the pantry (which
was a dark place and more what a scorpion would be
partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown
itself in the inkwell of his writing desk -- had exer-
cised him infinitely. The ship within the islands was
much more easily accounted for; and just as we were
about to rise from table he made his pronouncement.
She was, he doubted not, a ship from home lately
arrived. Probably she drew too much water to cross
the bar except at the top of spring tides. Therefore
she went into that natural harbor to wait for a few
days in preference to remaining in an open roadstead.

  "That's so," confirmed the second mate, suddenly,
in his slightly hoarse voice. "She draws over twenty
feet. She's the Liverpool ship Sephora with a cargo of
coal. Hundred and twentyrthree days from Cardiff."

  We looked at him in surprise.

  "The tugboat skipper told me when he camel on
board for your letters, sir," explained the young man.
"He expects to take her up the river the day after
tomorrow."

  After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his
information he slipped out of the cabin. The mate
observed regretfully that he "could not accoun for
that young fellow's whims." What prevented him
telling us all about it at once, he wanted to know.

  I detained him as he was making a move. For the
last two days the crew had had plenty of hard work,
and the night before they had very little sleep. I felt
painfully that I -- a stranger -- was doing something
unusual when I directed him to let all hands turn in
without setting an anchor watch. I proposed to keep
on deck myself till one o'clock or thereabouts. I would
get the second mate to relieve me at that hour.

  "He will turn out the cook and the steward at
four," I concluded, "and then give you a call. Of
course at the slightest sign of any sort of wind we'll
have the hands up and make a start at once."

  He concealed his astonishment. "Very well, sir."
Outside the cuddy he put his head in the second
mate's door to inform him of my unheard-of caprice
to take a five hours' anchor watch on myself. I heard
the other raise his voice incredulously -- "What?~ The
Captain himself?" Then a few more murmurs, a door
closed, then another. A few moments later I went on
deck.

  My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had
prompted that unconventional arrangement, as if I
had expected in those solitary hours of the night to
get on terms with the ship of which I knew nothing,
manned by men of whom I knew very little more.
Fast alongside a wharf, littered like any ship in port
with a tangle of unrelated things, invaded by unre-
lated shore people, I had hardly seen her yet prop-
erly. Now, as she lay deared for sea, the stretch of her
main-deck seemed to me very fine under the stars.
Very fine, very roomy for her size, and very inviting.
I descended the poop and paced the waist, my mind
picturing to myself the coming passage through the
Malay Archipelago, down the Indian Ocean, and up
the Atlantic. All its phases were familiar enough to
me, every characteristic, all the alternatives which
were likely to face me on the high seas everything!
. . . except the novel responsibility of command. But
I took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship
was like other ships, the men like other men, and that
the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises
expressly for my discomfiture.

  Arrived at that comforting condusion, I bethought
myself of a cigar and went below to get it. All was
still down there. Everybody at the after end of the
ship was sleeping profoundly. I came out again on the
quarterdeck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping suit on
that warm breathless night, barefooted, a glowing
cigar in my teeth, and, going forward, I was met by
the profound silence of the fore end of the ship. Only
as I passed the door of the forecastle I heard a deep,
quiet, trustful sigh of some sleeper inside. And sud-
denly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as
compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of
that untempted life presenting no disquieting prob-
lems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by
the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by
the singleness of its purpose.

  The riding light in the forerigging burned with a
clear, untroubled, as if symbolic, flame, confident and
bright in the mysterious shades of the night. Passing
on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I ob-
served that the rope side ladder, put over, no doubt,
for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away
our letters, had not been hauled in as it should have
been. I became annoyed at this, for exactitude in some
small matters is the very soul of discipline. Then I
reflected that I had myself peremptorily dismissed
my officers from duty, and by my own act had pre-
vented the anchor watch being formally set and things
properly attended to. I asked myself whether it was
wise ever to interfere with the established routine of
duties even from the kindest of motives. My action
might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only
knew how that absurdly whiskered mate would "ac-
count" for my conduct, and what the whole ship
thought of that informality of their new captain. I
was vexed with myself.

  Not from compunction certainly, but, as it were
mechanically, I proceeded to get the ladder in myself.
Now a side ladder of that sort is a light affair and
comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug, which should
have brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon
my body in a totaily unexpected jerk. What the devil!
. . . I was so astounded by the immovableness of
that ladder that I remained stockstill, trying to ac-
count for it to myself like that imbecile mate of mine.
In the end, of course, I put my head over the rail.

  The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow
on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw
at once something elongated and pale floating very
close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a faint
flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue
suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered in
the sleeping water with the elusive, silent play of sum-
mer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I saw re-
vealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad
livid back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish
cadaverous glow. One hand, awash, clutched the bot-
tom rung of the ladder. He was complete but for the
head. A headless corpse! The cigar dropped out of my
gaping mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite
audible in the absolute stillness of all things under
heaven. At that I suppose he raised up his face, a
dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship's side. But
even then I could only barely make out down there
the shape of his black-haired head. However, it was
enough for the horrid, frostbound sensation which
had gripped me about the chest to pass off. The mo-
ment of vain exclamations was past, too. I only
climbed on the spare spar and leaned over the rail as
far as I could, to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery
floating alongside.

  As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer,
the sea lightning played about his limbs at every stir;
and he appeared in it ghastly, silvery, fishlike. He
remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion
to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable
that he should not attempt to come on board, and
strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not
want to. And my first words were prompted by just
that troubled incertitude.

  "What's the matter?" I asked in my ordinary tone,
speaking down to the face upturned exactly under
mine.

  "Cramp," it answered, no louder. Then slightly
anxious, "I say, no need to call anyone."

  "I was not going to," I said.

  "Are you alone on deck?"

  "Yes."

  I had somehow the impression that he was on the
point of letting go the ladder to swim away beyond
my ken -- mysterious as he came. But, for the moment,
this being appearing as if he had risen from the bot-
tom of the sea (it was certainly the nearest land to the
ship) wanted only to know the time. I told him. And
he, down there, tentatively:

  "I suppose your captain's turned in?"

  "I am sure he isn't," I said.

  He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard
something like the low, bitter murmur of doubt.
"What's the good?" His next words came out with a
hesitating effort.

  "Look here, my man. Could you call him out
quietly?"

  I thought the time had come to declare myself.

  "I am the captain."

  I heard a "By Jove! " whispered at the level of the
water. The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the
water all about his limbs, his other hand seized the
ladder.

  "My name's Leggatt."

  The voice was calm and resolute. A good voice. The
self-possession of that man had somehow induced a
corresponding state in myself. It was very quietly that
I remarked:

  "You must be a good swimmer."

  "Yes. I've been in the water practically since nine
o'clock. The question for me now is whether I am to
let go this ladder and go on swimming till I sink from
exhaustion, or -- to come on board here."

  I felt this was no mere formula of desperate speech;
but a real alternative in the view of a strong soul. I
should have gathered from this that he was young;
indeed, it is only the young who are ever confronted
by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure intui-
tion on my part. A mysterious communication was es-
tablished already between us two -- in the face of that
silent, darkened tropical sea. I was young, too; young
enough to make no comment. The man in the water
began suddenly to climb up the ladder, and I has-
tened away from the rail to fetch some clothes.

  Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in
the lobby at the foot of the stairs. A faint snore came
through the closed door of the chief mate's room. The
second mate's door was on the hook, but the darkness
in there was absolutely soundless. He, too, was young
and could sleep like a stone. Remained the steward,
but he was not likely to wake up before he was called.
I got a sleeping suit out of my room and, coming back
on deck, saw the naked man from the sea sitting on
the main hatch, glimmering white in the darkness, his
elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. In a
moment he had concealed his damp body in a sleeping
suit of the same gray-stripe pattern as the one I was
wearing and followed me like my double on the poop.
Together we moved right aft, barefooted, silent.

  "What is it?" I asked in a deadened voice, taking
the lighted lamp out of the binnacle, and raising it to
his face.

  "An ugly business."

  He had rather regular features; a good mouth;
light eyes under somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows; a
smooth, square forehead; no growth on his cheeks; a
small, brown mustache, and a well-shaped, round
chin. His expression was concentrated, meditative,
under the inspecting light of the lamp I held up to his
face; such as a man thinking hard in solitude might
wear. My sleeping suit was just right for his size. A
well-knit young fellow of twenty-five at most. He
caught his lower lip with the edge of white, even
teeth.

  "Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle.
The warm, heavy tropical night closed upon his head
again.

  "There's a ship over there," he murmured.

  "Yes, I know. The Sephora. Did you know of us?"

  "Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of
her --" He paused and corrected himself. "I should
say I was."

  "Aha! Something wrong?"

  "Yes. Very wrong indeed. I've killed a man."

  "What do you mean? Just now?"

  "No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine south.
When I say a man --"

  "Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.

  The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod
imperceptibly above the ghostly gray of my sleeping
suit. It was, in the night, as though I had been faced
by my own reflection in the depths of a somber and
immense mirror.

  "A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway
boy," murmured my double, distinctly.

  "You're a Conway boy?"

  "I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly . . .
"Perhaps you too --"

  It was so; but being a couple of years older I had
left before he joined. After a quick interchange of
dates a silence fell; and I thought suddenly of my
absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the "Bless
my soul -- you don't say so" type of intellect. My
double gave me an inkling of his thoughts by saying:
"My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see me
before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself
I can't see the necessity. There are fellows that an
angel from heaven -- And I am not that. He was
one of those creatures that are just simmering all the
time with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils
that have no business to live at all. He wouldn't do
his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do theirs. But
what's the good of talking! You know well enough
the sort of ill-conditioned snarling cur--"

  He appealed to me as if our experiences had been
as identical as our clothes. And I knew well enough
the pestiferous danger of such a character where there
are no means of legal repression. And I knew well
enough also that my double there was no homicidal
ruffian. I did not think of asking him for details, and
he told me the story roughly in brusque, disconnected
sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all going on as
though I were myself inside that other sleeping suit.

  "It happened while we were setting a reefed fore-
sail, at dusk. Reefed foresail! You understand the
sort of weather. The only sail we had left to keep the
ship running; so you may guess what it had been like
for days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me some
of his cursed insolence at the sheet. I tell you I was
overdone with this terrific weather that seemed to
have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you -- and a deep ship.
I believe the fellow himself was half crazed with
funk. It was no time for gentlemanly reproof, so I
turned round and felled him like an ox. He up and
at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for the
ship. All hands saw it coming and took to the rigging,
but I had him by the throat, and went on shaking him
like a rat, the men above us yelling, 'Look out! look
out!' Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my
head. They say that for over ten minutes hardly any-
thing was to be seen of the ship -- just the three masts
and a bit of the forecastle head and of the poop all
awash driving along in a smother of foam. It was a
miracle that they found us, jammed together behind
the forebits. It's clear that I meant business, because I
was holding him by the throat still when they picked
us up. He was black in the face. It was too much for
them. It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped
as we were, screaming 'Murder!' like a lot of lunatics,
and broke into the cuddy. And the ship running for
her life, touch and go all the time, any minute her
last in a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at
it. I understand that the skipper, too, started raving
like the rest of them. The man had been deprived of
sleep for more than a week, and to have this sprung
on him at the height of a furious gale nearly drove
him out of his mind. I wonder they didn't fling me
overboard after getting the carcass of their precious
shipmate out of my fingers. They had rather a job to
separate us, I've been told. A sufliciently fierce story
to make an old judge and a respectable jury sit up a
bit. The first thing I heard when I came to myself was
the maddening howling of that endless gale, and on
that the voice of the old man. He was hanging on to
my bunk, staring into my face out of his sou'wester.

  " 'Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can act
no longer as chief mate of this ship.' "

  His care to subdue his voice made it sound monoto-
nous. He rested a hand on the end of the skylight to
steady himself with, and all that time did not stir a
limb, so far as I could see. "Nice little tale for a quiet
tea party," he concluded in the same tone.

  One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the
skylight; neither did I stir a limb, so far as I knew.
We stood less than a foot from each other. It oc-
curred to me that if old "Bless my soul -- you don't
say so" were to put his head up the companion and
catch sight of us, he would think he was seeing double,
or imagine himself come upon a scene of weird witch-
craft; the strange captain having a quiet confabulation
by the wheel with his own gray ghost. I became very
much concerned to prevent anything of the sort. I
heard the other's soothing undertone.

  "My father's a parson in Norfolk," it said. Evi-
dently he had forgotten he had told me this impor-
tant fact before. Truly a nice little tale.

  "You had better slip down into my stateroom now,"
I said, moving off stealthily. My double followed my
movements; our bare feet made no sound; I let him
in, closed the door with care, and, after giving a call
to the second mate, returned on deck for my relief.

  "Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when
he approached.

  "No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his
hoarse voice, with just enough deference, no more,
and barely suppressing a yawn.

  "Well, that's all you have to look out for. You have
got your orders."

  "Yes, sir."

  I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take
up his position face forward with his elbow in the rat-
lines of the mizzen rigging before I went below. The
mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully. The
cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood
a vase with flowers, a polite attention from the ship's
provision merchant -- the last flowers we should see
for the next three months at the very least. Two
bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetri-
cally, one on each side of the rudder casing. Every-
thing was as before in the ship except that two of
her captain's sleeping suits were simultaneously in use,
one motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very
still in the captain's stateroom.

  It must be explained here that my cabin had the
form of the capital letter L, the door being within the
angle and opening into the short part of the letter. A
couch was to the left, the bed place to the right; my
writing desk and the chronometers' table faced the
door. But anyone opening it, unless he stepped right
inside, had no view of what I call the long (or verti-
cal) part of the letter. It contained some lockers sur-
mounted by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick
jacket or two, caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on
hooks. There was at the bottom of that part a door
opening into my bathroom, which could be entered
also directly from the saloon. But that way was never
used.

  The mysterious arrival had discovered the advan-
tage of this particular shape. Entering my room,
lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung on
gimbals above my writing desk, I did not see him any-
where till he stepped out quietly from behind the
coats hung in the recessed part.

  "I heard somebody moving about, and went in
there at once," he whispered.

  I, too, spoke under my breath.

  "Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking
and getting permission."

  He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn
faded, as though he had been ill. And no wonder. He
had been, I heard presently, kept under arrest in his
cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was nothing
sickly in his eyes or in his expression. He was not a bit
like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning over my bed
place, whispering side by side, with our dark heads
together and our backs to the door, anybody bold
enough to open it stealthily would have been treated
to the uncanny sight of a double captain busy talking
in whispers with his other self.

  "But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang
on to our side ladder," I inquired, in the hardly audi-
ble murmurs we used, after he had told me something
more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once
the bad weather was over.

  "When we sighted Java Head I had had time to
think all those matters out several times over. I had
six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only an hour
or so every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck."

  He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my
bed place, staring through the open port. And I could
imagine perfectly the manner of this thinking out --
a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of
which I should have been perfectly incapable.

  "I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with
the land," he continued, so low that I had to strain my
hearing near as we were to each other, shoulder touch-
ing shoulder almost. "So I asked to speak to the old
man. He always seemed very sick when he came to
see me -- as if he could not look me in the face. You
know, that foresail saved the ship. She was too deep to
have run long under bare poles. And it was I that
managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. When I
had him in my cabin -- he stood by the door looking at
me as if I had the halter round my neck already -- I
asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked
at night while the ship was going through Sunda
Straits. There would be the Java coast within two or
three miles, off Angier Point. I wanted nothing more.
I've had a prize for swimming my second year in the
Conway."

 "I can believe it," I breathed out.

  "God only knows why they locked me in every
night. To see some of their faces you'd have thought
they were afraid I'd go about at night strangling peo-
ple, Am I a murdering brute? Do I look it? By Jove!
If I had been he wouldn't have trusted himself like
that into my room. You'll say I might have chucked
him aside and bolted out, there and then -- it was dark
already. Well, no. And for the same reason I wouldn't
think of trying to smash the door. There would have
been a rush to stop me at the noise, and I did not
mean to get into a confounded scrimmage. Somebody
else might have got killed -- for I would not have
broken out only to get chucked back, and I did not
want any more of that work. He refused, looking
more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men, and
also of that old second mate of his who had been
sailing with him for years -- a gray-headed old hum-
bug; and his steward, too, had been with him devil
knows how long seventeen years or more -- a dog-
matic sort of loafer who hated me like poison, just
because I was the chief mate. No chief mate ever
made more than one voyage in the Sephora, you
know. Those two old chaps ran the ship. Devil only
knows what the skipper wasn't afraid of (all his nerve
went to pieces altogether in that hellish spell of bad
weather we had) -- of what the law would do to him
-- of his wife, perhaps. Oh, yes! she's on board.
Though I don't think she would have meddled. She
would have been only too glad to have me out of the
ship in any way. The 'brand of Cain' business, don't
you see. That's all right. I was ready enough to go off
wandering on the face of the earth -- and that was
price enough to pay for an Abel of that sort. Anyhow,
he wouldn't listen to me. 'This thing must take its
course. I represent the law here.' He was shaking like
a leaf. 'So you won't?' 'No!' 'Then I hope you will be
able to sleep on that,' I said, and turned my back on
him. 'I wonder that you can,' cries he, and locks the
door.

  "Well after that, I couldn't. Not very well. That
was three weeks ago. We have had a slow passage
through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata for ten
days. When we anchored here they thought, I sup-
pose, it was all right. The nearest land (and that's five
miles) is the ship's destination; the consul would soon
set about catching me; and there would have been no
object in bolting to these islets there. I don't suppose
there's a drop of water on them. I don't know how it
was, but tonight that steward, after bringing me my
supper, went out to let me eat it, and left the door
unlocked. And I ate it -- all there was, too. After I had
finished I strolled out on the quarter-deck. I don't
know that I meant to do anything. A breath of fresh
air was all I wanted, I believe. Then a sudden tempta-
tion came over me. I kicked off my slippers and was
in the water before I had made up my mind fairly.
Somebody heard the splash and they raised an awful
hullabaloo. 'He's gone! Lower the boats! He's com-
mitted suicide! No, he's swimming.' Certainly I was
swimming. It's not so easy for a swimmer like me to
commit suicide by drowning. I landed on the nearest
islet before the boat left the ship's side. I heard them
pulling about in the dark, hailing, and so on, but after
a bit they gave up. Everything quieted down and the
anchorage became as still as death. I sat down on a
stone and began to think. I felt certain they would
start searching for me at daylight. There was no place
to hide on those stony things -- and if there had been,
what would have been the good? But now I was
clear of that ship, I was not going back. So after a
while I took off all my clothes, tied them up in a bun-
dle with a stone inside, and dropped them in the deep
water on the outer side of that islet. That was suicide
enough for me. Let them think what they liked, but I
didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I
sank -- but that's not the same thing. I struck out for
another of these little islands, and it was from that
one that I first saw your riding light. Something to
swim for. I went on easily, and on the way I came
upon a flat rock a foot or two above water. In the day-
time, I dare say, you might make it out with a glass
from your poop. I scrambled up on it and rested my-
self for a bit. Then I made another start. That last
spell must have been over a mile."

  His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all
the time he stared straight out through the porthole,
in which there was not even a star to be seen. I had not
interrupted him. There was something that made
comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in
himself; a sort of feeling, a quality, which I can't find
a name for. And when he ceased, all I found was a
futile whisper: "So you swam for our light?"

  "Yes -- straight for it. It was something to swim for.
I couldn't see any stars low down because the coast
was in the way, and I couldn't see the land, either.
The water was like glass. One might have been swim-
ming in a confounded thousand-feet deep cistern with
no place for scrambling out anywhere; but what I
didn't like was the notion of swimming round and
round like a crazed bullock before I gave out; and as
I didn't mean to go back . . . No. Do you see me
being hauled back, stark naked, off one of these little
islands by the scruff of the neck and fighting like a
wild beast? Somebody would have got killed for cer-
tain, and I did not want any of that. So I went on.
Then your ladder --"

  "Why didn't you hail the ship?" I asked, a little
louder.

  He touched my shoulder lightly. Lazy footsteps
came right over our heads and stopped. The second
mate had crossed from the other side of the poop and
might have been hanging over the rail for all we
knew.

  "He couldn't heat us talking -- could he?" My
double breathed into my very ear, anxiously.

  His anxiety was in answer, a sufficient answer, to
the question I had put to him. An answer containing
all the difficulty of that situation. I closed the porthole
quietly, to make sure. A louder word might have been
overheard.

  "Who's that?" he whispered then.

  "My second mate. But I don't know much more of
the fellow than you do."

  And I told him a little about myself. I had been
appointed to take charge while I least expected any-
thing of the sort, not quite a fortnight ago. I didn't
know either the ship or the people. Hadn't had the
time in port to look about me or size anybody up. And
as to the crew, all they knew was that I was appointed
to take the ship home. For the rest, I was almost as
much of a stranger on board as himself, I said. And at
the moment I felt it most acutely. I felt that it would
take very little to make me a suspect person in the
eyes of the ship's company.

  He had turned about meantime; and we, the two
strangers in the ship, faced each other in identical
attitudes.

  "Your ladder " he murmured, after a silence.
"Who'd have thought of finding a ladder hanging
over at night in a ship anchored out here! I felt just
then a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've
been leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got
out of condition. I wasn't capable of swimming round
as far as your rudder chains. And, lo and behold!
there was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it I
said to myself, 'What's the good?' When I saw a
man's head looking over I thought I would swim
away presently and leave him shouting -- in whatever
language it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I -- I
liked it. And then you speaking to me so quietly -- as if
you had expected me -- made me hold on a little
longer. It had been a confounded lonely time -- I don't
mean while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to
somebody that didn't belong to the Sephora. As to
asking for the captain, that was a mere impulse. It
could have been no use, with all the ship knowing
about me and the other people pretty certain to be
round here in the morning. I don't know -- I wanted
to be seen, to talk with somebody, before I went on. I
don't know what I would have said.... 'Fine
night, isn't it?' or something of the sort."

  "Do you think they will be round here presently?"
I asked with some incredulity.

  "Quite likely," he said, faintly.

  He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His
head rolled on his shoulders.

  "H'm. We shall see then. Meantime get into that
bed," I whispered. "Want help? There."

  It was a rather high bed place with a set of drawers
underneath. This amazing swimmer really needed
the lift I gave him by seizing his leg. He tumbled in,
rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his
eyes. And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must
have looked exactly as I used to look in that bed. I
gazed upon my other self for a while before drawing
across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran
on a brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning
them together for greater safety, but I sat down on
the couch, and once there I felt unwilling to rise and
hunt for a pin. I would do it in a moment. I was ex-
tremely tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the
strain of stealthiness, by the effort of whispering and
the general secrecy of this excitement. It was three
o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine,
but I was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep. I
sat there, fagged out, looking at the curtains, trying to
clear my mind of the confused sensation of being in
two places at once, and greatly bothered by an exas-
perating knocking in my head. It was a relief to dis-
cover suddenly that it was not in my head at all, but
on the outside of the door. Before I could collect my-
self the words "Come in" were out of my mouth, and
the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my morn-
ing coffee. I had slept, after all, and I was so fright-
ened that I shouted, "This way! I am here, steward,"
as though he had been miles away. He put down the
tray on the table next the couch and only then said,
very quietly, "I can see you are here, sir." I felt him
give me a keen look, but I dared not meet his eyes
just then. He must have wondered why I had drawn
the curtains of my bed before going to sleep on the
couch. He went out, hooking the door open as usual.

  I heard the crew washing decks above me. I knew I
would have been told at once if there had been any
wind. Calm, I thought, and I was doubly vexed. In-
deed, I felt dual more than ever. The steward reap-
peared suddenly in the doorway. I jumped up from
the couch so quickly that he gave a start.

  "What do you want here?"

  "Close your port, sir -- they are washing decks."

  "It is closed," I said, reddening.

  "Very well, sir." But he did not move from the
doorway and returned my stare in an extraordinary,
equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes wavered,
all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually
gentle, almost coaxingly:      

  "May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir?"

  "Of course!" I turned my back on him while he
popped in and out. Then I unhooked and closed the
door and even pushed the bolt. This sort of thing
could not go on very long. The cabin was as hot as an
oven, too. I took a peep at my double, and discovered
that he had not moved, his arm was still over his eyes;
but his chest heaved; his hair was wet; his chin glis-
tened with perspiration. I reached over him and
opened the port.

  "I must show myself on deck," I reflected.

  Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked,
with no one to say nay to me within the whole circle
of the horizon; but to lock my cabin door and take the
key away I did not dare. Directly I put my head out
of the companion I saw the group of my two officers,
the second mate barefooted, the chief mate in long
India-rubber boots, near the break of the poop, and
the steward halfway down the poop ladder talking to
them eagerly. He happened to catch sight of me and
dived, the second ran down on the main-deck shouting
some order or other, and the chief mate came to meet
me, touching his cap.        I

  There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did
not like. I don't know whether the steward had told
them that I was "queer" only, or downright drunk,
but I know the man meant to have a good look at me.
I watched him coming with a smile which, as he got
into point-blank range, took effect and froze his very
whiskers. I did not give him time to open his lips.

  "Square the yards by lifts and braces before the
hands go to breakfast."

  It was the first particular order I had given on
board that ship; and I stayed on deck to see it exe-
cuted, too. I had felt the need of asserting myself
without loss of time. That sneering young cub got
taken down a peg or two on that occasion, and I also
seized the opportunity of having a good look at the
face of every foremast man as they filed past me to go
to the after braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing
myself, I presided with such frigid dignity that the
two mates were only too glad to escape from the cabin
as soon as decency permitted; and all the time the
dual working of my mind distracted me almost to the
point of insanity. I was constantly watching myself,
my secret self, as dependent on my actions as my own
personality, sleeping in that bed, behind that door
which faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was
very much like being mad, only it was worse because
one was aware of it.

  I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at
last he opened his eyes it was in the full possession of
his senses with an inquiring look.

  "All's well so far," I whispered. "Now you must
vanish into the bathroom."

  He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and then I rang
for the steward, and facing him boldly, directed him
to tidy up my stateroom while I was having my bath
-- "and be quick about it." As my tone admitted of no
excuses, he said, "Yes, sir," and ran off to fetch his
dustpan and brushes. I took a bath and did most of my
dressing, splashing, and whistling softly for the stew-
ard's edification, while the secret sharer of my life
stood drawn up bolt upright in that little space, his
face looking very sunken in daylight, his eyelids low-
ered under the stern, dark line of his eyebrows drawn
together by a slight frown.

  When I left him there to go back to my room the
steward was finishing dusting. I sent for the mate and
engaged him in some insignificant conversation. It
was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character of his
whiskers; but my object was to give him an opportu-
nity for a good look at my cabin. And then I could at
last shut, with a clear conscience, the door of my state-
room and get my double back into the recessed part.
There was nothing else for it. He had to sit still on a
small folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats
hanging there. We listened to the steward going into
the bathroom out of the saloon, filling the water bot-
tles there, scrubbing the bath, setting things to rights,
whisk, bang, clatter -- out again into the saloon -- turn
the key click. Such was my scheme for keeping my
second self invisible. Nothing better could be con-
trived under the circumstances. And there we sat; I
at my writing desk ready to appear busy with some
papers, he behind me out of sight of the door. It
would not have been prudent to talk in daytime; and
I could not have stood the excitement of that queer
sense of whispering to myself. Now and then, glanc-
ing over my shoulder, I saw him far back there, sit-
ting rigidly on the low stool, his bare feet close to-
gether, his arms folded, his head hanging on his
breast -- and perfectly still. Anybody would have
taken him for me.

  I was fascinated by it myself. Every moment I had
to glance over my shoulder. I was looking at him
when a voice outside the door said:

  "Beg pardon, sir."

  "Well!" . . . I kept my eyes on him, and so when
the voice outside the door announced, "There's a
ship's boat coming our way, sir," I saw him give a
start -- the first movement he had made for hours. But
he did not raise his bowed head.

  "All right. Get the ladder over."

  I hesitated. Should I whisper something to him?
But what? His immobility seemed to have been never
disturbed. What could I tell him he did not know
already? . . . Finally I went on deck.

                      II

  The skipper of the Sephora had a thin red whisker
all round his face, and the sort of complexion that
goes with hair of that color; also the particular, rather
smeary shade of blue in the eyes. He was not exactly
a showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature
but middling -- one leg slightly more bandy than the
other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around. A
spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged.
I behaved with a politeness which seemed to discon-
cert him. Perhaps he was shy. He mumbled to me as
if he were ashamed of what he was saying; gave his
name (it was something like Archbold -- but at this
distance of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name,
ant a few other particulars of that sort, in the manner
of a criminal making a reluctant and doleful confes-
sion. He had had terrible weather on the passage out
-- terrible -- terrible -- wife aboard, too.

  By this lime we were seated in the cabin and the
steward brought in a tray with a bottle and glasses.
"Thanks! No." Never took liquor. Would have some
water, though. He drank two tumblerfuls. Terrible
thirsty work. Ever since daylight had been exploring
the islands round his ship.

  "What was that for -- fun?" I asked, with an ap-
pearance of polite interest.

  "No!" he sighed. "Painful duty."

  As he persisted in his mumbling and I wanted my
double to hear every word, I hit upon the notion of
informing him that I regretted to say I was hard of
hearing.

  "Such a young man, too!" he nodded, keeping his
smeary blue, unintelligent eyes fastened upon me.
"What was the cause of it -- some disease?" he in-
quired, without the least sympathy and as if he
thought that, if so, I'd got no more than I deserved.

  "Yes; disease," I admitted in a cheerful tone which
seemed to shock him. But my point was gained, be-
cause he had to raise his voice to give me his tale. It is
not worth while to record that version. It was just
over two months since all this had happened, and he
had thougbt so much about it that he seemed com-
pletely muddled as to its bearings, but still immensely
impressed.

  "What would you think of such a thing happening
on board your own ship? I've had the Sephora for
these fifteen years. I am a well-known shipmaster."

  He was tensely distressed -- and perhaps I should
have sympathized with him if I had been able to
detach my mental vision from the unsuspected sharer
of my cabin as though he were my second self. There
he was on the other side of the bulkhead, four or five
feet from us, no more, as we sat in the saloon. I looked
politely at Captain Archbold (if that was his name),
but it was the other I saw, in a gray sleeping suit,
seated on a low stool, his bare feet close together, his
arms folded, and every word said between us falling
into the ears of his dark head bowed on his chest.

  "I have been at sea now, man and boy, for seven-
and-thirty years, and I've never heard of such a thing
happening in an English ship. And that it should be
my ship. Wife on board, too."

  I was hardly listening to him.

  "Don't you think," I said, "that the heavy sea
which you told me, came aboard just then might have
killed the man? I have seen the sheer weight of a sea
kill a man very neatly, by simply breaking his neck."

  "Good God!" he uttered, impressively, fixing his
smeary blue eyes on me. "The sea! No man killed by
the sea ever looked like that." He seemed positively
scandalized at my suggestion. And as I gazed at him
certainly not prepared for anything original on his
part, he advanced his head close to mine and thrust
his tongue out at me so suddenly that I couldn't help
starting back.

  After scoring over my calmness in this graphic way
he nodded wisely. If I had seen the sight, he assured
me, I would never forget it as long as I lived. The
weather was too bad to give the corpse a proper sea
burial. So next day at dawn they took it up on the
poop, covering its face with a bit of bunting; he read
a short prayer, and then, just as it was, in its oilskins
and long boots, they launched it amongst those moun-
tainous seas that seemed ready every moment to swal-
low up the ship herself and the terrified lives on board
of her.

  "That reefed foresail saved you," I threw in.

  "Under God -- it did," he exclaimed fervently. "It
was by a special mercy, I firmly believe, that it stood
some of those hurricane squalls."

  "It was the setting of that sail which --" I began.

  "God's own hand in it," he interrupted me. "Noth-
ing less could have done it. I don't mind telling you
that I hardly dared give the order. It seemed impos-
sible that we could touch anything without losing it,
and then our last hope would have been gone."

  The terror of that gale was on him yet. I let him
go on for a bit, then said, casually -- as if returning to
a minor subject:

  "You were very anxious to give up your mate to
the shore people, I believe?"

  He was. To the law. His obscure tenacity on that
point had in it something incomprehensible and a little
awful; something, as it were, mystical, quite apart
from his anxiety that he should not be suspected of
"countenancing any doings of that sort." Seven-and-
thirty virtuous years at sea, of which over twenty of
immaculate command, and the last fifteen in the
Sephora, seemed to have laid him under some pitiless
obligation.

  "And you know," he went on, groping shame-
facedly amongst his feelings, "I did not engage that
young fellow. His people had some interest with my
owners. I was in a way forced to take him on. He
looked very smart, very gentlemanly, and all that.
But do you know -- I never liked him, somehow. I am
a plain man. You see, he wasn't exactly the sort for
the chief mate of a ship like the Sephora."

  I had become so connected in thoughts and impres-
sions with the secret sharer of my cabin that I felt as
if I, personally, were being given to understand that
I, too, was not the sort that would have done for the
chief mate of a ship like the Sephora. I had no doubt
of it in my mind.

  "Not at all the style of man. You understand," he
insisted, superfluously, looking hard at me.

  I smiled urbanely. He seemed at a loss for a while.

  "I suppose I must report a suicide."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Sui-cide! That's what I'll have to write to my
owners directly I get in."

  "Unless you manage to recover him before tomor-
row," I assented, dispassionately.... "I mean,
alive."

  He mumbled something which I really did not
catch, and I turned my ear to him in a puzzled man-
ner. He fairly bawled:

  "The land -- I say, the mainland is at least seven
miles off my anchorage."

  "About that."

  My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of
any sort of pronounced interest, began to arouse his
distrust. But except for the felicitous pretense of deaf-
ness I had not tried to pretend anything. I had felt
utterly incapable of playing the part of ignorance
properly, and therefore was afraid to try. It is also
certain that he had brought some ready-made suspi-
cions with him, and that he viewed my politeness as a
strange and unnatural phenomenon. And yet how else
could I have received him? Not heartily! That was
impossible for psychological reasons, which I need not
state here. My only object was to keep off his inquiries.
Surlily? Yes, but surliness might have provoked a
point-blank question. From its novelty to him and
from its nature, punctilious courtesy was the manner
best calculated to restrain the man. But there was the
danger of his breaking through my defense bluntly.
I could not, I think, have met him by a direct lie,
also for psychological (not moral) reasons. If he had
only known how afraid I was of his putting my feel-
ing of identity with the other to the test! But,
strangely enough -- (I thought of it only afterwards)
-- I believe that he was not a little disconcerted by the
reverse side of that weird situation, by something in
me that reminded him of the man he was seeking --
suggested a mysterious similitude to the young fellow
he had distrusted and disliked from the first.

  However that might have been, the silence was not
very prolonged. He took another oblique step.

  "I reckon I had no more than a two-mile pull to
your ship. Not a bit more."

  "And quite enough, too, in this awful heat," I said.

  Another pause full of mistrust followed. Necessity,
they say, is mother of invention, but fear, too, is not
barren of ingenious suggestions. And I was afraid he
would ask me point-blank for news of my other self.

  "Nice little saloon, isn't it?" I remarked, as if notic-
ing for the first time the ways his eyes roamed from
one closed door to the other. "And very well fitted
out, too. Here, for instance," I continued, reaching
over the back of my seat negligently and flinging the
door open, "is my bathroom."

  He made an eager movement, but hardly gave it a
glance. I got up, shut the door of the bathroom, and
invited him to have a look round, as if I were very
proud of my accommodation. He had to rise and be
shown round, but he went through the business with
out any raptures whatever.

  "And now we'll have a look at my stateroom," I
declared, in a voice as loud as I dared to make it,
crossing the cabin to the starboard side with purposely
heavy steps.

  He followed me in and gazed around. My intelli-
gent double had vanished. I played my part.

  "Very convenient -- isn't it?"

  "Very nice. Very comf . . ." He didn't finish and
went out brusquely as if to escape from some un-
righteous wiles of mine. But it was not to be. I had
been too frightened not to feel vengeful; I felt I had
him on the run, and I meant to keep him on the run.
My polite insistence must have had something men-
acing in it, because he gave in suddenly. And I did not
let him off a single item; mate's room, pantry, store-
rooms, the very sail locker which was also under the
poop -- he had to look into them all. When at last
I showed him out on the quarter-deck he drew a long,
spiritless sigh, and mumbled dismally that he must
really be going back to his ship now. I desired my
mate, who had joined us, to see to the captain's boat.

  The man of whiskers gave a blast on the whistle
which he used to wear hanging round his neck, and
yelled, "Sephora's away!" My double down there in
my cabin must have heard, and certainly could not
feel more relieved than I. Fow fellows came running
out from somewhere forward and went over the side,
while my own men, appearing on deck too, lined the
rail. I escorted my visitor to the gangway ceremoni-
ously, and nearly overdid it. He was a tenacious beast.
On the very ladder he lingered, and in that unique,
guiltily conscientious manner of sticking to the point:

  "I say . . . you . . . you don't think that --"

  I covered his voice loudly:

  "Certainly not.... I am delighted. Good-by."

  I had an idea of what he meant to say, and just
saved myself by the privilege of defective hearing.
He was too shaken generally to insist, but my mate,
close witness of that parting, looked mystified and his
face took on a thoughtful cast. As I did not want to
appear as if I wished to avoid all communication with
my ofiicers, he had the opportunity to address me.

  "Seems a very nice man. His boat's crew told our
chaps a very extraordinary story, if what I am told by
the steward is true. I suppose you had it from the cap-
tain, sir?"

  "Yes. I had a story from the captain."

  "A very horrible affair -- isn't it, sir?"

  "It is."

  "Beats all these tales we hear about murders in
Yankee ships."

  "I don't think it beats them. I don't think it resem-
bles them in the least."

  "Bless my soul -- you don't say so! But of course
I've no acquaintance whatever with American ships,
not I, so I couldn't go against your knowledge. It's
horrible enough for me.... But the queerest part
is that those fellows seemed to have some idea the
man was hidden aboard here. They had really. Did
you ever hear of such a thing?"

  "Preposterous -- isn't it?"

  We were walking to and fro athwart the quarter-
deck. No one of the crew forward could be seen (the
day was Sunday), and the mate pursued:

  "There was some little dispute about it. Our chaps
took offense. 'As if we would harbor a thing like that,'
they said. 'Wouldn't you like to look for him in our
coal-hole?' Quite a tiff. But they made it up in the end.
I suppose he did drown himself. Don't you, sir?"

  "I don't suppose anything."

  "You have no doubt in the matter, sir?"

  "None whatever."

  I left him suddenly. I felt I was producing a bad
impression, but with my double down there it was
most trying to be on deck. And it was almost as trying
to be below. Altogether a nerve-trying situation. But
on the whole I felt less torn in two when I was with
him. There was no one in the whole ship whom I
dared take into my confidence. Since the hands had
got to know his story, it would have been impossible
to pass him off for anyone else, and an accidental dis-
covery was to be dreaded now more than ever....

  The steward being engaged in laying the table for
dinner, we could talk only with our eyes when I first
went down. Later in the afternoon we had a cautious
try at whispering. The Sunday quietness of the ship
was against us; the stillness of air and water around
her was against us; the elements, the men were against
us -- everything was against us in our secret partner-
ship; time itself -- for this could not go on forever.
The very trust in Providence was, I suppose, denied
to his guilt. Shall I confess that this thought cast me
down very much? And as to the chapter of accidents
which counts for so much in the book of success, I
could only hope that it was closed. For what favor-
able accident could be expected?

  "Did you hear everything?" were my first words
as soon as we took up our position side by side, leaning
over my bed place.

  He had. And the proof of it was his earnest whis-
per, "The man told you he hardly dared to give the
order."

  I understood the reference to be to that saving
foresail.

  "Yes. He was afraid of it being lost in the setting."

  "I assure you he never gave the order. He may
think he did, but he never gave it. He stood there
with me on the break of the poop after the main top-
sail blew away, and whimpered about our last hope --
positively whimpered about it and nothing else -- and
the night coming on! To hear one's skipper go on
like that in such weather was enough to drive any
fellow out of his mind. It worked me up into a sort
of desperation. I just took it into my own hands and
went away from him, boiling, and But what's the
use telling you? You know! . . . Do you think that
if I had not been pretty fierce with them I should
have got the men to do anything? Not It! The bo's'n
perhaps? Perhaps! It wasn't a heavy sea -- it was a sea
gone mad! I suppose the end of the world will be
something like that; and a man may have the heart
to see it coming once and be done with it -- but to have
to face it day after day I don't blame anybody. I
was precious little better than the rest. Only -- I
was an officer of that old coal wagon, anyhow --"

  "I quite understand," I conveyed that sincere assur-
ance into his ear. He was out of breath with whisper-
ing; I could hear him pant slightly. It was all very
simple. The same strung-up force which had given
twenty-four men a chance, at least, for their lives,
had, in a sort of recoil, crushed an unworthy mutinous
existence.

  But I had no leisure to weigh the merits of the
matter -- footsteps in the saloon, a heavy knock.
"There's enough wind to get under way with, sir."
Here was the call of a new claim upon my thoughts
and even upon my feelings.

  "Turn the hands up," I cried through the door.
"I'll be on deck directly."

  I was going out to make the acquaintance of my
ship. Before I left the cabin our eyes met -- the eyes
of the only two strangers on board. I pointed to the
recessed part where the little campstool awaited him
and laid my finger on my lips. He made a gesture --
somewhat vague -- a little mysterious, accompanied by
a faint smile, as if of regret.

  This is not the place to enlarge upon the sensations
of a man who feels for the first time a ship move under
his feet to his own independent word. In my case they
were not unalloyed. I was not wholly alone with my
command; for there was that stranger in my cabin.
Or rather, I was not completely and wholly with her.
Part of me was absent. That mental feeling of being
in two places at once affected me physically as if the
mood of secrecy had penetrated my very soul. Before
an hour had elapsed since the ship had begun to move,
having occasion to ask the mate (he stood by my side)
to take a compass bearing of the pagoda, I caught my-
self reaching up to his ear in whispers. I say I caught
myself, but enough had escaped to startle the man.
I can't describe it otherwise than by saying that he
shied. A grave, preoccupied manner, as though he
were in possession of some perplexing intelligence,
did not leave him henceforth. A little later I moved
away from the rail to look at the compass with such
a stealthy gait that the helmsman noticed it -- and I
could not help noticing the unusual roundness of his
eyes. These are trifling instances, though it's to no
commander's advantage to be suspected of ludicrous
eccentricities. But I was also more seriously affected.
There are to a seaman certain words, gestures, that
should in given conditions come as naturally, as in-
stinctively as the winking of a menaced eye. A certain
order should spring on to his lips without thinking; a
certain sign should get itself made, so to speak, with-
out reflection. But all unconscious alertness had aban-
doned me. I had to make an effort of will to recall
myself back (from the cabin) to the conditions of the
moment. I felt that I was appearing an irresolute com-
mander to those people who were watching me more
or less critically.

  And, besides, there were the scares. On the second
day out, for instance, coming off the deck in the after-
noon (I had straw slippers on my bare feet) I stopped
at the open pantry door and spoke to the steward. He
was doing something there with his back to me. At
the sound of my voice he nearly jumped out of his
skin, as the saying is, and incidentally broke a cup.

  "What on earth's the matter with you?" I asked,
astonished.

  He was extremely confused. "Beg your pardon,
sir. I made sure you were in your cabin."

  "You see I wasn't."

  "No, sir. I could have sworn I had heard you mov-
ing in there not a moment ago. It's most extraordi-
nary . . . very sorry, sir."

  I passed on with an inward shudder. I was so iden-
tified with my secret double that I did not even men-
tion the fact in those scanty, fearful whispers we ex-
changed. I suppose he had made some slight noise of
some kind or other. It would have been miraculous
if he hadn't at one time or another. And yet, haggard
as he appeared, he looked always perfectIy self-con-
trolled, more than calm almost invulnerable. On my
suggestion he remained almost entirely in the bath-
room, which, upon the whole, was the safest place.
There could be really no shadow of an excuse for
anyone ever wanting to go in there, once the steward
had done with it. It was a very tiny place. Sometimes
he reclined on the floor, his legs bent, his head sus-
tained on one elbow. At others I would find him on
the campstool, sitting in his gray sleeping suit and with
his cropped dark hair like a patient, unmoved con-
vict. At night I would smuggle him into my bed
place, and we would whisper together, with the regu-
lar footfalls of the officer of the watch passing and
repassing over our heads. It was an infinitely miser-
able time. It was lucky that some tins of fine preserves
were stowed in a locker in my stateroom; hard bread
I could always get hold of; and so he lived on stewed
chicken, pate de foie gras, asparagus, cooked oysters,
sardines -- on all sorts of abominable sham delicacies
out of tins. My early-morning coffee he always drank;
and it was all I dared do for him in that respect.

  Every day there was the horrible maneuvering to
go through so that my room and then the bathroom
should be done in the usual way. I came to hate the
sight of the steward, to abhor the voice of that harm-
less man. I felt that it was he who would bring on the
disaster of discovery. It hung like a sword over our
heads.

  The fourth day out, I think (we were then work-
ing down the east side of the Gulf of Siam, tack for
tack, in light winds and smooth water) -- the fourth
day, I say, of this miserable juggling with the un-
avoidable, as we sat at our evening meal, that man,
whose slightest movement I dreaded, after putting
down the dishes ran up on deck busily. This could not
be dangerous. Presently he came down again; and
then it appeared that he had remembered a coat of
mine which I had thrown over a rail to dry after
having been wetted in a shower which had passed
over the ship in the afternoon. Sitting stolidly at the
head of the table I became terrified at the sight of the
garment on his arm. Of course he made for my door.
There was no time to lose.

  "Steward," I thundered. My nerves were so shaken
that I could not govern my voice and conceal my
agitation. This was the sort of thing that made my
terrifically whiskered mate tap his forehead with his
forefinger. I had detected him using that gesture
while talking on deck with a confidential air to the
carpenter. It was too far to hear a word, but I had
no doubt that this pantomime could only refer to the
strange new captain.

  "Yes, sir," the pale-faced steward turned resignedly
to me. It was this maddening course of being shouted
at, checked without rhyme or reason, arbitrarily
chased out of my cabin, suddenly called into it, sent
flying out of his pantry on incomprehensible errands,
that accounted for the growing wretchedness of his
expression.

  "Where are you going with that coat?"

  "To your room, sir."

  "Is there another shower coming?"

  "I'm sure I don't know, sir. Shall I go up again
and see, sir?"

  "No! never mind."

  My object was attained, as of course my other self
in there would have heard everything that passed.
During this interlude my two officers never raised
their eyes off their respective plates; but the lip of
that confounded cub, the second mate, quivered
visibly.

  I expected the steward to hook my coat on and
come out at once. He was very slow about it; but I
dominated my nervousness sufficiently not to shout
after him. Suddenly I became aware (it could be
heard plainly enough) that the fellow for some
reason or other was opening the door of the bathroom.
It was the end. The place was literally not big enough
to swing a cat in. My voice died in my throat and I
went stony all over. I expected to hear a yell of sur-
prise and terror, and made a movement, but had not
the strength to get on my legs. Everything remained
still. Had my second self taken the poor wretch by
the throat? I don't know what I could have done next
moment if I had not seen the steward come out of my
room, close the door, and then stand quietly by the
sideboard.

  "Saved," I thought. "But, no! Lost! Gone! He was
gone!"

  I laid my knife and fork down and leaned back in
my chair. My head swam. After a while, when suffi-
ciently recovered to speak in a steady voice, I in-
structed my mate to put the ship round at eight
o'clock himself.

  "I won't come on deck," I went on. "I think I'll
turn in, and unless the wind shifts I don't want to be
disturbed before midnight. I feel a bit seedy."

  "You did look middling bad a little while ago," the
chief mate remarked without showing any great
concern.

  They both went out, and I stared at the steward
clearing the table. There was nothing to be read on
that wretched man's face. But why did he avoid my
eyes, I asked myself. Then I thought I should like to
hear the sound of his voice.

  "Steward!"

  "Sir!" Startled as usual.

  "Where did you hang up that coat?"

  "In the bathroom, sir." The usual anxious tone.
"It's not quite dry yet, sir."

  For some time longer I sat in the cuddy. Had my
double vanished as he had come? But of his coming
there was an explanation, whereas his disappearance
would be inexplicable.... I went slowly into my
dark room, shut the door, lighted the lamp, and for a
time dared not turn round. When at last I did I saw
him standing bolt-upright in the narrow recessed part.
It would not be true to say I had a shock, but an irre-
sistible doubt of his bodily existence flitted through my
mind. Can it be, I asked myself, that he is not visible
to other eyes than mine? It was like being haunted.
Motionless, with a grave face, he raised his hands
slightly at me in a gesture which meant clearly,
"Heavens! what a narrow escape!" Narrow indeed.
I think I had come creeping quietly as near insanity
as any man who has not actually gone over the border.
That gesture restrained me, so to speak.

  The mate with the terrific whiskers was now put-
ting the ship on the other tack. In the moment of
profound silence which follows upon the hands going
to their stations I heard on the poop his raised voice:
"Hard alee!" and the distant shout of the order re-
peated on the main-deck. The sails, in that light
breeze, made but a faint fluttering noise. It ceased.
The ship was coming round slowly: I held my breath
in the renewed stillness of expectation; one wouldn't
have thought that there was a single living soul on
her decks. A sudden brisk shout? "Mainsail haull"
broke the spell, and in the noisy cries and rush over-
head of the men running away with the main brace
we two, down in my cabin, came together in our usual
position by the bed place.

  He did not wait for my question. "I heard him
fumbling here and just managed to squat myself down
in the bath," he whispered to me. "The fellow only
opened the door and put his arm in to hang the coat
up. All the same --"

  "I never thought of that," I whispered back, even
more appalled than before at the closeness of the
shave, and marveling at that something unyielding in
his character which was carrying him through so
finely. There was no agitation in his whisper. Who-
ever was being driven distracted, it was not he. He
was sane. And the proof of his sanity was continued
wben he took up the whispering again.

  "It would never do for me to come to life again."

  It was something that a ghost might have said. But
what he was alluding to was his old captain's reluc-
tant admission of the theory of suicide. It would obvi-
ously serve his turn -- if I had understood at all the
view which seemed to govern the unalterable purpose
of his action.

  "You must maroon me as soon as ever you can get
amongst these islands off the Cambodge shore," he
went on.

  "Maroon you! We are not living in a boy's adven-
ture tale," I protested. His scornful whispering took
me up.

  "We aren't indeed! There's nothing of a boy's
tale in this. But there's nothing else for it. I want no
more. You don't suppose I am afraid of what can be
done to me? Prison or gallows or whatever they may
please. But you don't see me coming back to explain
such things to an old fellow in a wig and twelve re-
spectable tradesmen, do you? What can they know
whether I am guilty or not -- or of what I am guilty,
either? That's my affair. What does the Bible say?
'Driven off the face of the earth.' Very well, I am off
the face of the earth now. As I came at night so I
shall go."

  "Impossible!" I murmured. "You can't."

  "Can't? . . . Not naked like a soul on the Day
of Judgment. I shall freeze on to this sleeping suit.
The Last Day is not yet -- and . . . you have under-
stood thoroughly. Didn't you?"

  I felt suddenly ashamed of myself. I may say truly
that I understood -- and my hesitation in letting that
man swim away from my ship's side had been a mere
sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice.

  "It can't be done now till next night," I breathed
out. "The ship is on the off-shore tack and the wind
may fail us."

  "As long as I know that you understand," he whis
pered. "But of course you do. It's a great satisfaction
to have got somebody to understand. You seem to
have been there on purpose." And in the same
whisper, as if we two whenever we talked had to say
things to each other which were not fit for the world
to hear, he added, "It's very wonderful."

  We remained side by side talking in our secret
way -- but sometimes silent or just exchanging a whis-
pered word or two at long intervals. And as usual he
stared through the port. A breath of wind came now
and again into our faces. The ship might have been
moored in dock, so gently and on an even keel she
dipped through the water, that did not murmur even
at our passage, shadowy and silent like a phantom sea.

  At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's
great surprise put the ship round on the other tack.
His terrible whiskers flitted round me in silent criti-
cism. I certainly should not have done it if it had
been only a question of getting out of that sleepy gulf
as quickly as possible. I believe he told the second
mate, who relieved him, that it was a great want of
judgment. The other only yawned. That intolerable
cub shuffled about so sleepily and lolled against the
rails in such a slack, improper fashion that I came
down on him sharply.

  "Aren't you properly awake yet?"

  "Yes, sir! I am awake."

  "Well, then, be good enough to hold yourself as if
you were. And keep a lookout. If there's any current
we'll be closing with some islands before daylight."

  The east side of the gulf is fringed with islands,
some solitary, others in groups. On the blue back-
ground of the high coast they seem to float on silvery
patches of calm water, arid and gray, or dark green
and rounded like clumps of evergreen bushes, with
the larger ones, a mile or two long, showing the out-
lines of ridges, ribs of gray rock under the dank mantle
of matted leafage. Unknown to trade, to travel,
almost to geography, the manner of life they harbor
is an unsolved secret. There must be villages -- settle-
ments of fishermen at least -- on the largest of them,
and some communication with the world is probably
kept up by native craft. But all that forenoon, as we
headed for them, fanned along by the faintest of
breezes, I saw no sign of man or canoe in the field of
the telescope I kept on pointing at the scattered group.

  At noon I gave no orders for a change of course,
and the mate's whiskers became much concerned and
seemed to be offering themselves unduly to my notice.
At last I said:

  "I am going to stand right in. Quite in as far as I
can take her."

  The stare of extreme surprise imparted an air of
ferocity also to his eyes, and he looked truly terrific
for a moment.

  "We're not doing welI in the middle of the gulf,"
I continued, casually. "I am going to look for the land
breezes tonight."

  "Bless my soul! Do you mean, sir, in the dark
amongst the lot of all them islands and reefs and
shoals?"

  "Well -- if there are any regular land breezes at all
on this coast one must get close inshore to find them,
mustn't one?" 

  "Bless my soul!" he exclaimed again under his
breath. All that afternoon he wore a dreamy, contem-
plative appearance which in him was a mark of per-
plexity. After dinner I went into my stateroom as if I
meant to take some rest. There we two bent our dark
heads over a half-unrolled chart lying on my bed.

  "There," I said. "It's got to be Koh-ring. I've been
looking at it ever since sunrise. It has got two hills
and a low point. It must be inhabited. And on the
coast opposite there is what looks like the mouth of
a biggish river -- with some towns, no doubt, not far
up. It's the best chance for you that I can see."

  "Anything. Koh-ring let it be."

  He looked thoughtfully at the chart as if surveying
chances and distances from a lofty height -- and fol-
lowing with his eyes his own figure wandering on the
blank land of Cochin-China, and then passing off that
piece of paper clean out of sight into uncharted
regions. And it was as if the ship had two captains to
plan her course for her. I had been so worried and
restless running up and down that I had not had the
patience to dress that day. I had remained in my sleep-
ing suit, with straw slippers and a soft floppy hat. The
closeness of the heat in the gulf hat been most oppres-
sive, and the crew were used to seeing me wandering
in that airy attire.

  "She will clear the south point as she heads now,"
I whispered into his ear. "Goodness only knows when,
though, but certainly after dark. I'll edge her in to
half a mile, as far as I may be able to judge in the
dark --"

  "Be careful," he murmured, warningly and I
realized suddenly that all my future, the only future
for which I was fit, would perhaps go irretrievably to
pieces in any mishap to my first command.

  I could not stop a moment longer in the room. I
motioned him to get out of sight and made my way
on the poop. That unplayful cub had the watch. I
walked up and down for a while thinking things out,
then beckoned him over.

  "Send a couple of hands to open the two quarter-
deck ports," I said, mildly.

  He acutally had the impudence, or else so forgot
himself in his wonder at such an incomprehensible
order, as to repeat:

  "Open the quarter-deck ports! What for, sir?"

  "The only reason you need concern yourself about
is because I tell you to do so. Have them open wide
and fastened properly."

  He reddened and went off, but I believe made
some jeering remark to the carpenter as to the sensible
practice of ventilating a ship's quarter-deck. I know
he popped into the mate's cabin to impart the fact to
him because the whiskers came on deck, as it were by
chance, and stole glances at me_ from felow -- for
signs of lunacy or drunkenness, I suppose.

  A little before supper, feeling more restless than
ever, I rejoined, for a moment, my second self. And
to find him sitting so quietly was surprising, like some-
thing against nature, inhuman.

  I developed my plan in a hurried whisper.

  "I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her
round. I will presently find means to smuggle you out
of here into the sail locker, which communicates with
the lobby. But there is an opening, a sort ef square for
hauling the sails out, which gives straight on the
quarter deck and which is never closed in fine weather,
so as to give air to the sails. When the ship's way is
deadened in stays and all the hands are aft at the main
braces you will have a clear road to slip out and get
overboard through the open quarter-deck port. I've
had them both fastened up. Use a rope's end to lower
yourself into the water so as to avoid a splash -- you
know. It could be heard and cause some beastly com-
plication."

  He kept silent for a while, then whispered, "I
understand."

  "I won't be there to see you go," I began with an
effort. "The rest . . . I only hope I have understood,
too."

  "You have. From first to last" -- and for the first
time there seemed to be a faltering, something
strained in his whisper. He caught hold of my arm,
but the ringing of the supper bell made me start. He
didn't though; he only released his grip.

  After supper I didn't come below again till well
past eight o'clock. The faint, steady breeze was
loaded with dew; and the wet, darkened sails held all
there was of propelling power in it. The night, clear
and starry, sparkled darkly, and the opaque, lightless
patches shifting slowly against the low stars were the
drifting islets. On the port bow there was a big one
more distant and shadowily imposing by the great
space of sky it eclipsed.

  On opening the door I had a back view of my very
own self looking at a chart. He had come out of the
recess and was standing near the table.

  "Quite dark enough," I whispered.

  He stepped back and leaned against my bed with
a level, quiet glance. I sat on the couch. We had
nothing to say to each other. Over our heads tho
officer of the watch moved here and there. Then I
heard him move quickly. I knew what that meant. He
was making for the companion; and presently his
voice was outside my door.

  "We are drawing in pretty fast, sir. Land looks
rather close."

  "Very well," I answereL "I am coming on deck
directly."

  I waited till he was gone out of the cuddy, then
rose. My double moved too. The time had come to
exchange our last whispers, for neither of us was ever
to hear each other's natural voice.

  "Look here!" I opened a drawer and took out three
sovereigns. "Take this anyhow. I've got six and I'd
give you the lot, only I must keep a little money to
buy some fruit and vegetables for the crew from
native boats as we go through Sunda Straits."

  He shook his head.

  "Take it," I urged him, whispering desperately.
"No one can tell what --"

  He smiled and slapped meaningly the only pocket
of the sleeping jacket. It was not safe, certainly. But
I produced a large old silk handkerchief of mine, and
tying the three pieces of gold in a corner, pressed it
on him. He was touched, I supposed, because he took
it at last and tied it quickly round his waist under the
jacket, on his bare skin.

  Our eyes met; several seconds elapsed, till, our
glances still mingled, I extended my hand and turned
the lamp out. Then I passed through the cuddy, leav-
ing the door of my room wide open.... "Steward!"

  He was still lingering in the pantry in the greatness
of his zeal, giving a rub-up to a plated cruet stand the
last thing before going to bed. Being careful not to
wake up the mate, whose room was opposite, I spoke
in an undertone.

  He looked round anxiously. "Sir!"

  "Can you get me a little hot water from the gal-
ley?"

  "I am afraid, sir, the galley fire's been out for
some time now."

  "Go and see."

  He flew up the stairs.

  "Now," I whispered, loudly, into the saloon -- too
loudly, perhaps, but I was afraid I couldn't make a
sound. He was by my side in an instant -- the double
captain slipped past the stairs -- through a tiny dark
passage . . . a sliding door. We were in the sail
locker, scrambling on our knees over the sails. A
sudden thought struck me. I saw myself wandering
barefooted, bareheaded, the sun beating on my dark
poll. I snatched off my floppy hat and tried hurriedly
in the dark to ram it on my other self. He dodged
and fended off silently. I wonder what he thought
had come to me before he understood and suddenly
desisted. Our hands met gropingly, lingered united
in a steady, motionless clasp for a second.... No
word was breathed by either of us when they sep-
arated.

  I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the
steward returned.

  "Sorry, sir. Kettle barely warm. Shall I light the
spirit lamp?"

  "Never mind."

  I came out on deck slowly. It was now a matter of 
conscience to shave the land as close as possible -- for
now he must go overboard whenever the ship was put
in stays. Must! There could be no going back for him.
After a moment I walked over to leeward and my
heart flew into my mouth at the nearness of the land
on the bow. Under any other circumstances I would
not have held on a minute longer. The second mate
had followed me anxiously.

  I looked on till I felt I could command my voice.

  "She will weather," I said then in a quiet tone.

  "Are you going to try that, sir?" he stammered out
incredulously.

  I took no notice of him and raised my tone just
enough to be heard by the helmsman.

  "Keep her good full."

  "Good full, sir."

  The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the
world was silent. The strain of watching the dark
loom of the land grow bigger and denser was too
much for me. I had shut my eyes -- because the ship
must go closer. She must! The stillness was intoler-
able. Were we standing still?

  When I opened my eyes the second view started
my heart with a thump. The black southern hill of
Koh-ring seemed to hang right over the ship like a
towering fragment of the ever-lasting night. On that
enormous mass of blackness there was not a gleam to
be seen, not a sound to be heard. It was gliding irre-
sistibly towards us and yet seemed already within
reach of the hand. I saw the vague figures of the
watch grouped in the waist, gazing in awed silence.

  "Are you going on, sir?" inquired an unsteady voice
at my elbow.

  I ignored it. I had to go on.

  "Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't
do now," I said, warningly.

  "I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman an-
swered me, in strange, quavering tones.

  Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't
say in the shadow of the land, but in the very black-
ness of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone too
close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.

  "Give the mate a call," I said to the young man who
stood at my elbow as still as death. "And turn all
hands up."

  My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated
from the height of the land. Several voices cried out
together: "We are all on deck, sir."

  Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding
closer, towering higher, without a light, without a
sound. Such a hush had fallen on the ship that she
might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly
under the very gate of Erebus.

  "My God! Where are we?"

  It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was
thunderstruck, and as it were deprived of the moral
support of his whiskers. He clapped his hands and
absolutely cried out, "Lost!"

  "Be quiet," I said, sternly.

  He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture
of his despair. "What are we doing here?"

  "Looking for the land wind."

  He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me
recklessly.

  "She will never get out. You have done it, sir. I
knew it'd end in something like this. She will never
weather, and you are too close now to stay. She'll drift
ashore before she's round. O my God!"

  I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his
poor devoted head, and shook it violently.

  "She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear
himself away.

  "Is she? . . . Keep good full there!"

  "Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a fright-
ened, thin, childlike voice.

  I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking
it. "Ready about, do you hear? You go forward" --
shake -- "and stop there" -- shake -- "and hold your
noise" -- shake -- "and see these head-sheets properly
overhauled" shake, shake -- shake.

  And all the time I dared not look towards the land
lest my heart should fail me. I released my grip at
last and he ran forward as if fleeing for dear life.

  I wondered what my double there in the sail
locker thought of this commotion. He was able to
hear everything -- and perhaps he was able to under-
stand why, on my conscienoe, it had to be thus close -- 
no less. My first order "Hard alee!" re-echoed omi-
nously under the towering shadow of Koh-ring as if
I had shouted in a mountain gorge. And then I
watched the land intently. In that smooth water and
light wind it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to.
No! I could not feel her. And my second self was
making now ready to ship out and lower himself over-
board. Perhapn he was gone already . . . ?

  The great black mass brooding over our very mast-
heads began to pivot away from the ship's side silently.
And now I forgot the secret stranger ready to depart,
and remembered only that I was a total stranger to
the ship. I did not know her. Would she do it? How
was she to be handled?

  I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly. She
was perhaps stopped, and her very fate hung in the
balance, with the black mass of Koh-ring like the gate
of the everlasting night towering over her taffrail.
What would she do now? Had she way on her yet? I
stepped to the side swiftly, and on the shadowy water
I could see nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash
revealing the glassy smoothness of the sleeping sur-
face. It was impossible to tell -- and I had not learned
yet the feel of my ship. Was she moving? What I
needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper,
which I could throw overboard and watch. I had
nothing on me. To run down for it I didn't dare.
There was no time. All at once my strained, yearning
stare distinguished a white object floating within a
yard of the ship's side. White on the black water. A
phosphorescent flash passed under it. What was that
thing? . . . I recognized my own floppy hat. It
must have fallen off his head . . . and he didn't
bother. Now I had what I wanted -- the saving mark
for my eyes. But I hardly thought of my other self,
now gone from the ship, to be hidden forever from all
friendly faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the
earth, with no brand of the curse on his sane forehead
to stay a slaying hand . . . too proud to explain.

  And I watched the hat -- the expression of my sud-
den pity for his mere flesh. It had been meant to save
his homeless head from the dangers of the sun. And
now -- behold -- it was saving the ship, by serving me
for a mark to help out the ignorance of my strange-
ness. Ha! It was drifting forward, warning me just in
time that the ship had gathered sternway.

  "Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the sea-
man standing still like a statue.

  The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle
light as he jumped round to the other side and spun
round the wheeL

  I walked to the break of the poop. On the over-
shadowed deck all hands stood by the forebraces
waiting for my order. Thc stars ahead seemed to be
gliding from right to left. And all was so still in the
world that I heard the quiet remark, "She's round,"
passed in a tone of intense relief between two seamen.

  "Let go and haul."

  The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst
cheery cries. And now the frightful whiskers made
themselves heard giving various orders. Already the
ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her.
Nothing! no one in the world shouId stand now be-
tween us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent
knowledge and mute affection, the perfect com-
munion of a seaman with his first command.

  Walking to the taffril, I was in time to make out,
on the very edge of a darkness thrown by a towering
black mass like the very gateway of Erebus -- yes, I
was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my
white hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret
sharer of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he
were my second self, had lowered himself into the
water to take his punishment: a free man, a proud
swimmer striking out for a new destiny.