ing strength in a shaky
attempt to clip off the thick growth of his red beard. A large towel was
spread over his lap, and a shower of stiff hairs, like bits of copper
wire, was descending on it at every snip of the scissors.

He turned to me his face grotesque beyond the fantasies of mad dreams,
one cheek all bushy as if with a swollen flame, the other denuded and
sunken, with the untouched long moustache on that side asserting itself,
lonely and fierce. And while he stared thunderstruck, with the gaping
scissors on his fingers, I shouted my discovery at him fiendishly, in
six words, without comment.

V

I heard the clatter of the scissors escaping from his hand, noted the
perilous heave of his whole person over the edge of the bunk after them,
and then, returning to my first purpose, pursued my course on the deck.
The sparkle of the sea filled my eyes. It was gorgeous and barren,
monotonous and without hope under the empty curve of the sky. The sails
hung motionless and slack, the very folds of their sagging surfaces
moved no more than carved granite. The impetuosity of my advent made the
man at the helm start slightly. A block aloft squeaked incomprehensibly,
for what on earth could have made it do so? It was a whistling note like
a bird's. For a long, long time I faced an empty world, steeped in an
infinity of silence, through which the sunshine poured and flowed for
some mysterious purpose. Then I heard Ransome's voice at my elbow.

"I have put Mr. Burns back to bed, sir."

"You have."

"Well, sir, he got out, all of a sudden, but when he let go the edge of
his bunk he fell down. He isn't light-headed, though, it seems to me."

"No," I said dully, without looking at Ransome. He waited for a moment,
then cautiously, as if not to give offence: "I don't think we need lose
much of that stuff, sir," he said, "I can sweep it up, every bit of
it almost, and then we could sift the glass out. I will go about it at
once. It will not make the breakfast late, not ten minutes."

"Oh, yes," I said bitterly. "Let the breakfast wait, sweep up every bit
of it, and then throw the damned lot overboard!"

The profound silence returned, and when I looked over my shoulder,
Ransome--the intelligent, serene Ransome--had vanished from my side.
The intense loneliness of the sea acted like poison on my brain. When I
turned my eyes to the ship, I had a morbid vision of her as a floating
grave. Who hasn't heard of ships found fl