and their catch
upon their shoulders, and appeared quite at ease, with no concern for
their long swim to shore or for the sharks, which were plentiful. They
might even nap a little during the middle afternoon."

"When our people wanted to sleep at sea," said McBirney, "if there
were two of them, though we never bothered to take along logs, one
rested on the other's shoulder."

One listened and marveled, and smiled to think that, had one stayed at
home, one might never know these things. Forgotten was the wraith of
Leung Kai Chu, the jungle trail of Hallman, and even the trepidation
with which we had awaited the sailing ship's boat. I was soon to be
in those enchanted archipelagoes, and to see for myself those mighty
swimmers and those sleepers upon the sea. I might even get a letter
through that floating postmaster.

There was a Continental duchess aboard, whom I pitied. She was oldish
and homely, and couldn't forget her rank. She had a woman companion, an
honorable lady, a maid, and a courier, but she sat all day knitting or
reading poor novels. She had nothing to do with the other passengers,
eating with her companion at an aloof table, and sitting before her
own cabin, apart from others. The courier and I talked several times,
and once he said that her Highness was much interested in a statement
I had made about the origin of the Maori race, but she did not invite
me to tell her my opinion directly. Poor wretch! as Pepys used to
say, she was entangled in her own regal web, and sterilized by her
Continental caste.

For days and nights we moved through the calm sea, with hardly more
than the sparkling crests of the myriad swelling waves to distinguish
from a bounded lake these mighty waters that wash the newest and oldest
of lands. It seemed as if all the world was only water and us. The
ship was as steady in her element as a plane in those upper strata
of the ether where the winds and clouds no longer have domain. The
company in a week had found themselves, and divided into groups in
which each sought protection from boredom, ease of familiar manners,
and opportunity to talk or to listen.

Often when all had left the deck I sat alone in the passage before the
surgeon's cabin to drink in the coolness of the dark, and to wonder at
the problem of life. If a man had not his dream, what could life give
him? In his heart he might know by experience that it never could come
true, but without it, false as it might be, h