e semi-savage order of decoration. I hate them. You
never will wear them? Promise me that."

And she had promised, somewhat diverted by his tone of authority and of
insistence.

"But about this?" she asked him, indicating the blue and crimson symbol.

"As I say, fruit of fear and superstition--a pretty pair in which to put
one's faith! All the same, they went far to save my life, I fancy--for
which I thank them mightily being here, with you, to-day."

And he told her--softening the uglier details, as unfit for a
gently-nurtured woman's hearing--a brutal story of the sea. Of a sailing
ship becalmed in tropic waters, waiting, through long blistering days and
breathless sweltering nights, for the breeze which wouldn't come--a
floating hell, between glaring skies and glaring ocean--and of bullyings,
indignities and torments devised by a brain diseased by drink.

"But was there no one to interfere, no one to protect you?" Damaris
cried, aghast.

"A man's master in his own ship," Faircloth answered. "And short of
mutiny there's no redress. Neither officers nor men had a stomach for
mutiny. They were a poor, cowed lot. Till this drunken madness came on
him he had been easy going enough. They supposed, when it passed, he'd
be so again. And then as he reserved his special attentions for me,
they were willing to grin and bear it--or rather let me bear it, just
stupidly letting things go. It was my first long voyage. I'd been lucky
in my skippers so far, and was a bit soft still. A bit conceited, I
don't doubt, as well. He swore he'd break my spirit--for my own good,
of course--and he came near succeeding.--But Damaris, Damaris, dear,
don't take it to heart so. What does it matter? It did me no lasting
harm, and was all over and done with--would have been forgotten too,
but for the rather silly sign of it--years and years ago. Let us talk
no more about it."

"Oh, no!--go on--please, go on," she brokenly prayed him.

So he told her, further, how at Singapore, the outward voyage at last
ended, he was tempted to desert; or, better still, put an end, once and
for all, to the whole black business of living. And how, meditating on
the methods of such drastic deliverance--sitting in the palm-shaded
verandah of a fly-blown little eating-house, kept by a monkey-faced,
squint-eyed Japanese--he happened to pick up a Calcutta newspaper. He
read its columns mechanically, without interest or understanding, his
mind still working on met