, the polished surfaces of the rails,
the glass of the skylights. Right aft two seamen, busy cleaning the
steering gear, with the reflected ripples of light running playfully
up their bent backs, went on with their work, unaware of me and of
the almost affectionate glance I threw at them in passing toward the
companion-way of the cabin.

The doors stood wide open, the slide was pushed right back. The
half-turn of the staircase cut off the view of the lobby. A low
humming ascended from below, but it stopped abruptly at the sound of my
descending footsteps.

III

The first thing I saw down there was the upper part of a man's body
projecting backward, as it were, from one of the doors at the foot of
the stairs. His eyes looked at me very wide and still. In one hand he
held a dinner plate, in the other a cloth.

"I am your new Captain," I said quietly.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he had got rid of the plate and
the cloth and jumped to open the cabin door. As soon as I passed into
the saloon he vanished, but only to reappear instantly, buttoning up a
jacket he had put on with the swiftness of a "quick-change" artist.

"Where's the chief mate?" I asked.

"In the hold, I think, sir. I saw him go down the after-hatch ten
minutes ago."

"Tell him I am on board."

The mahogany table under the skylight shone in the twilight like a dark
pool of water. The sideboard, surmounted by a wide looking-glass in an
ormulu frame, had a marble top. It bore a pair of silver-plated lamps
and some other pieces--obviously a harbour display. The saloon itself was
panelled in two kinds of wood in the excellent simple taste prevailing
when the ship was built.

I sat down in the armchair at the head of the table--the captain's
chair, with a small tell-tale compass swung above it--a mute reminder of
unremitting vigilance.

A succession of men had sat in that chair. I became aware of that
thought suddenly, vividly, as though each had left a little of himself
between the four walls of these ornate bulkheads; as if a sort of
composite soul, the soul of command, had whispered suddenly to mine of
long days at sea and of anxious moments.

"You, too!" it seemed to say, "you, too, shall taste of that peace and
that unrest in a searching intimacy with your own self--obscure as we
were and as supreme in the face of all the winds and all the seas, in an
immensity that receives no impress, preserves no memories, and keeps no
r