soon as the Juno arrived at
Rio. He would never go back to Arendal; and he would no longer tread the
same deck with the father of Carl Beck.

Later on in the night, when the moon had risen, Nils, who had not been
able to sleep in his hammock, came up to Salve again, and drew him aside
behind the round-house, as if for a private conversation.

"What would I have done? you asked. I'll tell you," he said, after a
short pause, and his honest face seemed to express a vivid realisation
of the whole misery of the situation. "I would have died upon the
doorstep!"

Salve stood and looked at him for a moment. There came a strange pallor
over his face in the moonlight.

"Look you," he said, ironically, laying his hand upon the other's
shoulder, "I have never a wife; but all the same, I am dead upon the
doorstep--" Then, in the next breath, and with a sudden change of tone,
he said, "Of course I am only joking, you know," and left him, with a
hard, forced laugh.

Nils remained where he was, and pondered, not knowing exactly how to
take it. It was possible Salve had only been making fun of him. But
another feeling eventually predominated. It told him that he had had a
glimpse into a despairing soul; and he was profoundly moved.

CHAPTER XIII.

They stood slowly away to the north-east along the coast of Brazil.
Every morning, towards the end of the dog-watch, when the sun rose in
its gorgeous majesty from the sea, there came a refreshing breeze off
the land, bringing with it the perfume of a thousand aromatic herbs;
albatrosses and sea-gulls circled round the ship; flying-fish were to be
seen in shoals; and all nature, animate and inanimate, seemed to be
freshened for the time into activity and life. But gradually the breeze
would become warmer and lighter, and then die away altogether, so that
before noon the sails would hang flapping against the mast. They
scarcely made five knots in the watch, and the heat during the greater
part of the day was unbearable--as unbearable almost as the captain's
temper, which showed no signs of improvement, and which vented itself in
a systematic grinding of the crew, who, Captain Beck declared, were
getting into intolerable habits of idleness.

Strange things occurred on board just at this time, which, taken in
connection with the captain's mood, produced an uncomfortable feeling
that there was some evil influence at work by which both the ship and
the captain were possessed. Gro