t to the bench by the wall, where she sat, waiting, with her legs
crossed in a way that was a defiance and an attraction in such a place,
where a woman is rarely seen. She read a newspaper, perhaps because that
acted as a screen, though she turned its pages with a nervous abruptness
which betrayed her imitation of indifference.

3

The _Medea_ and the _Cygnet_, and the other ships I knew which carried
those whose fortunes were some concern of mine, might have sailed over
the edge of the world. My only communication was with an occasional
familiar name in the reports of the _Shipping List_. Then Macandrew came
home again. But it was difficult to meet him. Mrs. Macandrew told me he
was working by his ship in drydock. They had had trouble with the
engines that voyage, and she herself had seen little of him, except to
find him, when she came down of a morning, asleep in the drawing-room.
Just flung himself down in the first place, you know. In those greasy
overalls, too. He had told her the engine-room looked like a scrap-heap,
but the ship had to be ready for sea in ten days. Once he had worked
thirty-two hours on end. Think of that, and he had not been home for six
months. She would strongly advise any girl not to marry a man who went
to sea, and if I met Macandrew I was to bring him home at once. Did I
hear?

When I found the _Medea_ it was late in the day, for she was not in the
dry-dock that had been named. Her Chief had just gone ashore. There was
a chance that he would have called at the _Negro Boy_, but he had not
been seen there. Except for the landlord, who was at a table talking to
a stranger, the saloon was empty. A silk hat was on the table before the
stranger, beside a tankard, and the hat was surmounted by a pair of
neatly folded kid gloves. "Come over here," said the landlord. "Sit
here for a bit, Macandrew may come in. This is Dr. Maslin." A monocle
fell its length of black cord from the doctor's eye, and he nodded to me.

"The doctor used to be with me when I was running out East," explained
the landlord. "Where did you say you had come from now, Doctor? Oh,
yes, Tabacol. Funny name. I was never on the South American coast.
After I left you sick at Macassar, the last trip we had together--the old
_Siwalik_--I left the sea to younger men. But there you are, Doctor.
Still at it. Why don't you give it up?"

The doctor did not answer, except to make a bubbling noise in his
tank