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.Ionly 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.
