any intimate
conversation. However, Kieran remained silent so very long that the
third officer turned and ventured: "'Adn't you better go below and have
your bit o' dinner afore it's gone, mate?" And Kieran came out of his
dream and said perhaps he'd better and stood up to go below; but on the
top step of the ladder he paused and over his shoulder threw back to the
passenger: "It was a long time, though, before Cogan saw Peru."

II

When Kieran came on deck again the third officer had gone forward, but
the passenger was still on one of the towing bitts and still smoking.
Kieran, strolling to the taffrail, resumed his study of the tossing
ship's wake and the cavorting barge in tow. When he seemed to have
settled the matter to his satisfaction, he seated himself on the other
towing bitt.

"You can get an idea into your head and sometimes it'll swing you
around like that barge on the end of that hawser, won't it? Or perhaps
your mind don't run that way?"

"I don't see," retorted the passenger, "that that barge has to stick
there forever. What's to prevent her from making a leap and fetching up
suddenly, and if she did she'd part that hawser like a piece of twine."

"Yes, but she won't make the leap--not till something outside of herself
drives her to it. If a sea should rise, or a gale of wind, she might.
But it would take something like that. In the meantime she points this
way and that, slewing now to this side--see--and now to the other--but
never getting away from this ship which has her in tow. Our course must
be her course."

"Yes, I suppose that is so."

"Well, then, Cogan that I've been telling you about was nearly always in
tow of a force that seemed to be outside of himself. A storm, a high
sea, or a gale of wind in his case would be an upheaval of his soul
like. But in those days he hadn't come to that. Maybe he was still only
half awake. Martin Jackson, sitting out on the sidewalk of his Fourth of
July saloon, came nearer to making him think than all of the school
teachers he'd ever seen. Maybe, too, life was too smooth in those days.
However, he was always in tow of some fancy or other. And one day,
being free of the navy, he went to Peru."

'"Twas love at first sight then with that young Peruvian girl on the
beach?"

"No, I don't think so--not quite that. Even at that age Cogan could not
fall in love with curves and color alone. At any rate, he put out to
sea; and the beauty of the little Peruv