At four I lighted up and went to reading, forgetting my irritated skin in
Vernon Lee's delightful screed against William James, and his "will to
believe." I was on the weather side of the ship, and from overhead,
through the deck, came the steady footfalls of some officer on watch. I
knew that they were not the steps of Mr. Pike, and wondered whether they
were Mr. Mellaire's or the pilot's. Somebody above there was awake. The
work was going on, the vigilant seeing and overseeing, that, I could
plainly conclude, would go on through every hour of all the hours on the
voyage.

At half-past four I heard the steward's alarm go off, instantly
suppressed, and five minutes later I lifted my hand to motion him in
through my open door. What I desired was a cup of coffee, and Wada had
been with me through too many years for me to doubt that he had given the
steward precise instructions and turned over to him my coffee and my
coffee-making apparatus.

The steward was a jewel. In ten minutes he served me with a perfect cup
of coffee. I read on until daylight, and half-past eight found me,
breakfast in bed finished, dressed and shaved, and on deck. We were
still towing, but all sails were set to a light favouring breeze from the
north. In the chart-room Captain West and the pilot were smoking cigars.
At the wheel I noted what I decided at once was an efficient. He was not
a large man; if anything he was undersized. But his countenance was
broad-browed and intelligently formed. Tom, I later learned, was his
name--Tom Spink, an Englishman. He was blue-eyed, fair-skinned, well-
grizzled, and, to the eye, a hale fifty years of age. His reply of "Good
morning, sir" was cheery, and he smiled as he uttered the simple phrase.
He did not look sailor-like, as did Henry, the training-ship boy; and yet
I felt at once that he was a sailor, and an able one.

It was Mr. Pike's watch, and on asking him about Tom he grudgingly
admitted that the man was the "best of the boiling."

Miss West emerged from the chart-house, with a rosy morning face and her
vital, springy limb-movement, and immediately began establishing her
contacts. On asking how I had slept, and when I said wretchedly, she
demanded an explanation. I told her of my affliction of hives and showed
her the lumps on my wrists.

"Your blood needs thinning and cooling," she adjudged promptly. "Wait a
minute. I'll see what can be done for you."

And with that she was