he was swearing hard to kill Strickland when they let him out.

A week passed.

"That's what I always say," reflected Captain Nichols,
"when you hurt a man, hurt him bad. It gives you a bit of
time to look about and think what you'll do next."

Then Strickland had a bit of luck. A ship bound for Australia
had sent to the Sailors' Home for a stoker in place of one who
had thrown himself overboard off Gibraltar in an attack of
delirium tremens.

"You double down to the harbour, my lad," said the Captain to
Strickland, "and sign on. You've got your papers."

Strickland set off at once, and that was the last Captain
Nichols saw of him. The ship was only in port for six hours,
and in the evening Captain Nichols watched the vanishing smoke
from her funnels as she ploughed East through the wintry sea.

I have narrated all this as best I could, because I like the
contrast of these episodes with the life that I had seen
Strickland live in Ashley Gardens when he was occupied with
stocks and shares; but I am aware that Captain Nichols was an
outrageous liar, and I dare say there is not a word of truth
in anything he told me. I should not be surprised to learn
that he had never seen Strickland in his life, and owed his
knowledge of Marseilles to the pages of a magazine.

Chapter XLVIII

It is here that I purposed to end my book. My first idea was
to begin it with the account of Strickland's last years in
Tahiti and with his horrible death, and then to go back and
relate what I knew of his beginnings. This I meant to do,
not from wilfulness, but because I wished to leave Strickland
setting out with I know not what fancies in his lonely soul
for the unknown islands which fired his imagination. I liked
the picture of him starting at the age of forty-seven,
when most men have already settled comfortably in a groove,
for a new world. I saw him, the sea gray under the mistral and
foam-flecked, watching the vanishing coast of France, which he
was destined never to see again; and I thought there was
something gallant in his bearing and dauntless in his soul.
I wished so to end on a note of hope. It seemed to emphasise
the unconquerable spirit of man. But I could not manage it.
Somehow I could not get into my story, and after trying once
or twice I had to give it up; I started from the beginning in
the usual way, and made up my mind I could only tell what I
knew of Strickland's life in the order in which I