less the last, of
the phenomena of personality and consciousness yet remains to be uttered
by the psychologists.

Pondering thus, I chanced to lift my eyes, and the glorious spectacle of
the _Elsinore_ burst upon me. I had been so long on board, and in board
of her, that I had forgotten she was a white-painted ship. So low to the
water was her hull, so delicate and slender, that the tall, sky-reaching
spars and masts and the hugeness of the spread of canvas seemed
preposterous and impossible, an insolent derision of the law of
gravitation. It required effort to realize that that slim curve of hull
inclosed and bore up from the sea's bottom five thousand tons of coal.
And again, it seemed a miracle that the mites of men had conceived and
constructed so stately and magnificent an element-defying fabric--mites
of men, most woefully like the Greek at my feet, prone to precipitation
into the blackness by means of a rap on the head with a piece of wood.

Tony made a struggling noise in his throat, then coughed and groaned.
From somewhere he was reappearing. I noticed Mr. Pike look at him
quickly, as if apprehending some recrudescence of frenzy that would
require more boat-stretcher. But Tony merely fluttered his big black
eyes open and stared at me for a long minute of incurious amaze ere he
closed them again.

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked the mate.

"Put 'm back to work," was the reply. "It's all he's good for, and he
ain't hurt. Somebody's got to work this ship around the Horn."

When we hoisted the boat on board I found Miss West had gone below. In
the chart-room Captain West was winding the chronometers. Mr. Mellaire
had turned in to catch an hour or two of sleep ere his watch on deck at
noon. Mr. Mellaire, by the way, as I have forgotten to state, does not
sleep aft. He shares a room in the 'midship-house with Mr. Pike's Nancy.

Nobody showed sympathy for the unfortunate Greek. He was bundled out
upon Number Two hatch like so much carrion and left there unattended, to
recover consciousness as he might elect. Yes, and so inured have I
become that I make free to admit I felt no sympathy for him myself. My
eyes were still filled with the beauty of the _Elsinore_. One does grow
hard at sea.

CHAPTER XIX

One does not mind the trades. We have held the north-east trade for days
now, and the miles roll off behind us as the patent log whirls and
tinkles on the taffrail. Yesterday