he ventilator. It was ten o'clock when I realized
I had made but one screw. The fireman on duty came through, and
remarking that he thought the wind had gone round, climbed the ladder to
change the ventilators. I heard the groan of the cowl as he pulled at it
and then my lamp flared gustily in a light breeze that came down. Light
as it was it was a blessed relief. It was more. It was a message. There
was a strange smell about it that gave a new turn to my thoughts. A
smell of the land, of the dark forests and fragrant plantations. Another
stock phrase came to me--'spicy breezes.' Working there at my miserable
task, I wondered if these were the 'spicy breezes' of the hymn-books. Of
a sudden I threw down my tools and went up the ladder to look round. All
day there had been in my mind a sort of undertow of resentment at the
tacit decision that I ought not to want to go ashore. I did want to. It
seemed to me an outrage to come so far and remain a prisoner in bondage
on the ship. I leaned on the rail by the gangway and looked along the
wooden wharf to where a few lights twinkled in the distance. Higher up,
beyond the cutting for the railway, the dark mass of a big shed loomed
up against the lights of what I supposed was Port Duluth. And from where
I stood I could hear a steady rhythmic throb, the unmistakable sound of
an engine. I wondered what it could be. Was it one of those weird
affairs I remembered in our catalogues, colonial engines with grotesque
fireboxes and elaborate funnels, for burning wood instead of coal? I
looked round. Nobody in sight. Everybody was below. The Chief and
Second were asleep, old Croasan was in his room with a bottle of gin,
drinking steadily. In another moment I had gone down the gangway and was
making for the shed. Just then I felt if I didn't speak to somebody who
wasn't under the spell of the _Corydon_, I would go crazy. I slipped
into an excavation and skinned my knees. I fell over some stacked rails
and barked my shins. I heard something scuttling in the darkness. I saw
the night-watchman on the _Corydon_ standing at the galley door, looking
out. And then, looking again towards my objective, I saw an open door in
the shed with a short, broad figure showing up sharply against a
brightly illuminated interior. I scrambled up the little incline and
found a path.

"I was suddenly conscious I had no particular reason for calling upon
this unknown person in the middle of the night. It is one of th