ter, there had been little change in his
condition for a week. But on the day we finished bending the schooner's
sails, he heard his last, and the last movement of his lips died
away--but not before I had asked him, "Are you all there?" and the lips
had answered, "Yes."

The last line was down. Somewhere within that tomb of the flesh still
dwelt the soul of the man. Walled by the living clay, that fierce
intelligence we had known burned on; but it burned on in silence and
darkness. And it was disembodied. To that intelligence there could be
no objective knowledge of a body. It knew no body. The very world was
not. It knew only itself and the vastness and profundity of the quiet
and the dark.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The day came for our departure. There was no longer anything to detain
us on Endeavour Island. The _Ghost's_ stumpy masts were in place, her
crazy sails bent. All my handiwork was strong, none of it beautiful; but
I knew that it would work, and I felt myself a man of power as I looked
at it.

"I did it! I did it! With my own hands I did it!" I wanted to cry
aloud.

But Maud and I had a way of voicing each other's thoughts, and she said,
as we prepared to hoist the mainsail:

"To think, Humphrey, you did it all with your own hands?"

"But there were two other hands," I answered. "Two small hands, and
don't say that was a phrase, also, of your father."

She laughed and shook her head, and held her hands up for inspection.

"I can never get them clean again," she wailed, "nor soften the
weather-beat."

"Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour," I said,
holding them in mine; and, spite of my resolutions, I would have kissed
the two dear hands had she not swiftly withdrawn them.

Our comradeship was becoming tremulous, I had mastered my love long and
well, but now it was mastering me. Wilfully had it disobeyed and won my
eyes to speech, and now it was winning my tongue--ay, and my lips, for
they were mad this moment to kiss the two small hands which had toiled so
faithfully and hard. And I, too, was mad. There was a cry in my being
like bugles calling me to her. And there was a wind blowing upon me
which I could not resist, swaying the very body of me till I leaned
toward her, all unconscious that I leaned. And she knew it. She could
not but know it as she swiftly drew away her hands, and yet, could not
forbear one quick searching look before she turned away her