第2章

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 twenty-three days from Cardiff."We looked at him in surprise.

"The tugboat skipper told me when he came 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 account 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 Idirected 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 Iknew 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 unrelated shore people, I had hardly seen her yet properly.Now, as she lay cleared for sea, the stretch of her main-deck seemed to me very find 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 conclusion, 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 quarter-deck, 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 suddenly 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 problems, 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 observed 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 prevented 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 "account" 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 totally unexpected jerk.

What the devil!...I was so astounded by the immovableness of that ladder that I remained stockstill, trying to account 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 summer lightning in a night sky.With a gasp I saw revealed 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 bottom rung of the ladder.