hat there were sides to be
taken on board that ship, and what this taking sides was about. There
was a girl. A nice girl. He asked himself no questions. Flora de
Barral was not so much younger in years than himself; but for some
reason, perhaps by contrast with the accepted idea of a captain's wife,
he could not regard her otherwise but as an extremely youthful creature.
At the same time, apart from her exalted position, she exercised over
him the supremacy a woman's earlier maturity gives her over a young man
of her own age. As a matter of fact we can see that, without ever
having more than a half an hour's consecutive conversation together, and
the distances duly preserved, these two were becoming friends--under the
eye of the old man, I suppose.

How he first got in touch with his captain's wife Powell relates in this
way. It was long before his memorable conversation with the mate and
shortly after getting clear of the channel. It was gloomy weather; dead
head wind, blowing quite half a gale; the _Ferndale_ under reduced sail
was stretching close-hauled across the track of the homeward bound
ships, just moving through the water and no more, since there was no
object in pressing her and the weather looked threatening. About ten
o'clock at night he was alone on the poop, in charge, keeping well aft
by the weather rail and staring to windward, when amongst the white,
breaking seas, under the black sky, he made out the lights of a ship.
He watched them for some time. She was running dead before the wind of
course. She will pass jolly close--he said to himself; and then
suddenly he felt a great mistrust of that approaching ship. She's
heading straight for us--he thought. It was not his business to get out
of the way. On the contrary. And his uneasiness grew by the
recollection of the forty tons of dynamite in the body of the
_Ferndale_; not the sort of cargo one thinks of with equanimity in
connection with a threatened collision. He gazed at the two small
lights in the dark immensity filled with the angry noise of the seas.
They fascinated him till their plainness to his sight gave him a
conviction that there was danger there. He knew in his mind what to do
in the emergency, but very properly he felt that he must call the
captain out at once.

He crossed the deck in one bound. By the immemorial custom and usage of
the sea the captain's room is on the starboard side. You would just as
soon expect your