played astern, and the last of the land birds that had followed us out
flew in circles around the masts.

"Sometimes," said Charlie Jones, "I think the Good Man should have left
it the way it was after the flood just sky and water. What's the land,
anyhow? Noise and confusion, wickedness and crime, robbing the widow
and the orphan, eat or be et."

"Well," I argued, "the sea's that way. What are those fish out there
flying for, but to get out of the way of bigger fish?"

Charlie Jones surveyed me over his pipe.

"True enough, youngster," he said; "but the Lord's given 'em wings to
fly with. He ain't been so careful with the widow and the orphan."

This statement being incontrovertible, I let the argument lapse, and
sat quiet, luxuriating in the warmth, in the fresh breeze, in the
feeling of bodily well-being that came with my returning strength. I
got up and stretched, and my eyes fell on the small window of the
chart-room.

The door into the main cabin beyond was open. It was dark with the
summer twilight, except for the four rose-shaded candles on the table,
now laid for dinner. A curious effect it had--the white cloth and
gleaming pink an island of cheer in a twilight sea; and to and from
this rosy island, making short excursions, advancing, retreating,
disappearing at times, the oval white ship that was Williams's shirt
bosom.

Charlie Jones, bending to the right and raised to my own height by the
grating on which he stood, looked over my shoulder. Dinner was about
to be served. The women had come out. The table-lamps threw their
rosy glow over white necks and uncovered arms, and revealed, higher in
the shadows, the faces of the men, smug, clean-shaven, assured, rather
heavy.

I had been the guest of honor on a steam-yacht a year or two before,
after a game. There had been pink lights on the table, I remembered,
and the place-cards at dinner the first night out had been caricatures
of me in fighting trim. There had been a girl, too. For the three days
of that week-end cruise I had been mad about her; before that first
dinner, when I had known her two hours, I had kissed her hand and told
her I loved her!

Vail and Miss Lee had left the others and come into the chart-room. As
Charlie Jones and I looked, he bent over and kissed her hand.

The sun had gone down. My pipe was empty, and from the galley,
forward, came the odor of the forecastle supper. Charlie was coughing,
a racking paroxysm th