s seemed to grow out of the water; others again floated in long
anchored rows in the very middle of the stream. Here and there in the
distance, above the crowded mob of low, brown roof ridges, towered great
piles of masonry, King's Palace, temples, gorgeous and dilapidated,
crumbling under the vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, almost
palpable, which seemed to enter one's breast with the breath of one's
nostrils and soak into one's limbs through every pore of one's skin.

The ridiculous victim of jealousy had for some reason or other to stop
his engines just then. The steamer drifted slowly up with the tide.
Oblivious of my new surroundings I walked the deck, in anxious, deadened
abstraction, a commingling of romantic reverie with a very practical
survey of my qualifications. For the time was approaching for me to
behold my command and to prove my worth in the ultimate test of my
profession.

Suddenly I heard myself called by that imbecile. He was beckoning me to
come up on his bridge.

I didn't care very much for that, but as it seemed that he had something
particular to say I went up the ladder.

He laid his hand on my shoulder and gave me a slight turn, pointing with
his other arm at the same time.

"There! That's your ship, Captain," he said.

I felt a thump in my breast--only one, as if my heart had then ceased to
beat. There were ten or more ships moored along the bank, and the one he
meant was partly hidden away from my sight by her next astern. He said:
"We'll drift abreast her in a moment."

What was his tone? Mocking? Threatening? Or only indifferent? I could
not tell. I suspected some malice in this unexpected manifestation of
interest.

He left me, and I leaned over the rail of the bridge looking over the
side. I dared not raise my eyes. Yet it had to be done--and, indeed, I
could not have helped myself. I believe I trembled.

But directly my eyes had rested on my ship all my fear vanished. It went
off swiftly, like a bad dream. Only that a dream leaves no shame behind
it, and that I felt a momentary shame at my unworthy suspicions.

Yes, there she was. Her hull, her rigging filled my eye with a great
content. That feeling of life-emptiness which had made me so restless for
the last few months lost its bitter plausibility, its evil influence,
dissolved in a flow of joyous emotion.

At first glance I saw that she was a high-class vessel, a harmonious
creature in the lines of her fine bo