I
suppose it is a joy so long as it remains a beauty, but d'ye see it's
got to remain, and that's the job.

"Yet, mates, if there is a thing of beauty that should be a joy to
every heart, it is a full-rigged ship, clothed in white, asleep in the
light of the moon, on a pale and silent breast of ocean that waves in
splendour under the planet over the flying jib-boom end. Have I got
such a ship as that in my mind? Ay. And was it a sheet calm but ne'er
a moon? Ay, again. There was ne'er a moon that night. The ship rose
faint and hushed to the stars. It was one bell in the morning watch.
Scarce air enough moved to give life to the topmost canvas; as the
ship bowed upon the light swell the sails swung in and swung out with
a rushing sound of many wings up in the gloom. Yet the vessel had
steerage way in that hour. Shall I tell you why? Because I know!

"And ere that full-rigged ship alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean
came to a dead halt, life sinking in her with the failing of the wind
in a sort of dying shudder from royal to course, this was how her
decks showed: a man was at the wheel, the chief mate leaned against
the rail in the thickness made by the mizzen rigging, and with folded
arms seemed to doze in the shadow; a 'young gentleman,' as they used
to call the 'brass-bounders,' loafed sleepily near the main shrouds
where the break of the poop came. That youngster watched the stars
trembling between the squares of the starboard rigging. He was new to
the sea, and emotion and sentiment were still sweet--they were not
salt in him. He was the son of a gentleman--he had a clever eye for
what was picturesque and romantic, for what was tender and affecting
in all he beheld, whether by day or night, whether he looked aloft or
whether upon the mighty breast of brine--he should have done well: he
oughter ha' done well."

The grey-haired respectable seaman closed his eyes in a silence filled
with significance, and after a short smoke thus proceeded:

"Some of the watch on deck sprawled about in the shadow out of sight,
curled up, asleep; only one figure was upright forward. 'Twas the
shape of the man on the look-out. For all the world he postured like
the mate aft, as though he copied the officer for a life or death bet:
head sunk, arms folded--the forecastle break brought that raised deck
well aft, and the look-out had the shadow of the starboard
fore-rigging upon him.

"This man thus standing, by no means asleep, yet