liked. He had the third place in navigation
and pulled stroke in the first cutter. Having a steady head with an
excellent physique, he was very smart aloft. His station was in the
fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with the contempt of a
man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multitude
of roofs cut in two by the brown tide of the stream, while scattered
on the outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys rose
perpendicular against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and
belching out smoke like a volcano. He could see the big ships departing,
the broad-beamed ferries constantly on the move, the little boats
floating far below his feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the
distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world of adventure.

On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he would forget
himself, and beforehand live in his mind the sea-life of light
literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting
away masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf with a line; or as a
lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walking on uncovered reefs
in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. He confronted savages on
tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat
upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men--always an example
of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a book.

'Something's up. Come along.'

He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladders. Above
could be heard a great scurrying about and shouting, and when he got
through the hatchway he stood still--as if confounded.

It was the dusk of a winter's day. The gale had freshened since noon,
stopping the traffic on the river, and now blew with the strength of a
hurricane in fitful bursts that boomed like salvoes of great guns firing
over the ocean. The rain slanted in sheets that flicked and subsided,
and between whiles Jim had threatening glimpses of the tumbling tide,
the small craft jumbled and tossing along the shore, the motionless
buildings in the driving mist, the broad ferry-boats pitching
ponderously at anchor, the vast landing-stages heaving up and down and
smothered in sprays. The next gust seemed to blow all this away. The
air was full of flying water. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, a
furious earnestness in the screech of the wind, in the brutal tumult of
earth and sky, that seemed directed at