everything was
gone--glamour, flavour, interest, contentment--everything. It was one
of these moments, you know. The green sickness of late youth descended
on me and carried me off. Carried me off that ship, I mean.

We were only four white men on board, with a large crew of Kalashes and
two Malay petty officers. The Captain stared hard as if wondering what
ailed me. But he was a sailor, and he, too, had been young at one time.
Presently a smile came to lurk under his thick iron-gray moustache, and
he observed that, of course, if I felt I must go he couldn't keep me
by main force. And it was arranged that I should be paid off the
next morning. As I was going out of his cabin he added suddenly, in a
peculiar wistful tone, that he hoped I would find what I was so anxious
to go and look for. A soft, cryptic utterance which seemed to reach
deeper than any diamond-hard tool could have done. I do believe he
understood my case.

But the second engineer attacked me differently. He was a sturdy young
Scot, with a smooth face and light eyes. His honest red countenance
emerged out of the engine-room companion and then the whole robust man,
with shirt sleeves turned up, wiping slowly the massive fore-arms with
a lump of cotton-waste. And his light eyes expressed bitter distaste, as
though our friendship had turned to ashes. He said weightily: "Oh! Aye!
I've been thinking it was about time for you to run away home and get
married to some silly girl."

It was tacitly understood in the port that John Nieven was a fierce
misogynist; and the absurd character of the sally convinced me that he
meant to be nasty--very nasty--had meant to say the most crushing thing
he could think of. My laugh sounded deprecatory. Nobody but a friend
could be so angry as that. I became a little crestfallen. Our chief
engineer also took a characteristic view of my action, but in a kindlier
spirit.

He was young, too, but very thin, and with a mist of fluffy brown beard
all round his haggard face. All day long, at sea or in harbour, he could
be seen walking hastily up and down the after-deck, wearing an
intense, spiritually rapt expression, which was caused by a perpetual
consciousness of unpleasant physical sensations in his internal economy.
For he was a confirmed dyspeptic. His view of my case was very simple.
He said it was nothing but deranged liver. Of course! He suggested I
should stay for another trip and meantime dose myself with a certain
pate