reaking adventures in the realm of
mind. And here I was, on board the _Elsinore_, unhorsed by my encounters
with the problems of the ultimate, carried off the field with a broken
pate.

As I leaned against the rail, dismissing premonitions of disaster, I
could not help thinking of Miss West below, bustling and humming as she
made her little nest. And from her my thought drifted on to the
everlasting mystery of woman. Yes, I, with all the futuristic contempt
for woman, am ever caught up afresh by the mystery of woman.

Oh, no illusions, thank you. Woman, the love-seeker, obsessing and
possessing, fragile and fierce, soft and venomous, prouder than Lucifer
and as prideless, holds a perpetual, almost morbid, attraction for the
thinker. What is this flame of her, blazing through all her
contradictions and ignobilities?--this ruthless passion for life, always
for life, more life on the planet? At times it seems to me brazen, and
awful, and soulless. At times I am made petulant by it. And at other
times I am swayed by the sublimity of it. No; there is no escape from
woman. Always, as a savage returns to a dark glen where goblins are and
gods may be, so do I return to the contemplation of woman.

Mr. Pike's voice interrupted my musings. From for'ard, on the main deck,
I heard him snarl:

"On the main-topsail-yard, there!--if you cut that gasket I'll split your
damned skull!"

Again he called, with a marked change of voice, and the Henry he called
to I concluded was the training-ship boy.

"You, Henry, main-skysail-yard, there!" he cried. "Don't make those
gaskets up! Fetch 'em in along the yard and make fast to the tye!"

Thus routed from my reverie, I decided to go below to bed. As my hand
went out to the knob of the chart-house door again the mate's voice rang
out:

"Come on, you gentlemen's sons in disguise! Wake up! Lively now!"

CHAPTER IX

I did not sleep well. To begin with, I read late. Not till two in the
morning did I reach up and turn out the kerosene reading-lamp which Wada
had purchased and installed for me. I was asleep immediately--perfect
sleep being perhaps my greatest gift; but almost immediately I was awake
again. And thereafter, with dozings and cat-naps and restless tossings,
I struggled to win to sleep, then gave it up. For of all things, in my
state of jangled nerves, to be afflicted with hives! And still again, to
be afflicted with hives in cold winter weather!