sticking up--hey, Chips?"

"And you ought to have known better than to chuck all my tools overboard
for 'im, like a skeary greenhorn," retorted the morose carpenter.
"Well--he's gone after 'em now," he added in an unforgiving tone.--"On the
China Station, I remember once, the Admiral he says to me..." began the
sailmaker.

A week afterwards the Narcissus entered the chops of the Channel.

Under white wings she skimmed low over the blue sea like a great tired
bird speeding to its nest. The clouds raced with her mastheads; they
rose astern enormous and white, soared to the zenith, flew past, and
falling down the wide curve of the sky, seemed to dash headlong into the
sea--the clouds swifter than the ship, more free, but without a home. The
coast to welcome her stepped out of space into the sunshine. The lofty
headlands trod masterfully into the sea; the wide bays smiled in the
light; the shadows of homeless clouds ran along the sunny plains, leaped
over valleys, without a check darted up the hills, rolled down
the slopes; and the sunshine pursued them with patches of running
brightness. On the brows of dark cliffs white lighthouses shone in
pillars of light. The Channel glittered like a blue mantle shot with
gold and starred by the silver of the capping seas. The Narcissus rushed
past the headlands and the bays. Outward-bound vessels crossed her
track, lying over, and with their masts stripped for a slogging fight
with the hard sou'wester. And, inshore, a string of smoking steamboats
waddled, hugging the coast, like migrating and amphibious monsters,
distrustful of the restless waves.

At night the headlands retreated, the bays advanced into one unbroken
line of gloom. The lights of the earth mingled with the lights of
heaven; and above the tossing lanterns of a trawling fleet a great
lighthouse shone steadily, like an enormous riding light burning above
a vessel of fabulous dimensions. Below its steady glow, the coast,
stretching away straight and black, resembled the high side of an
indestructible craft riding motionless upon the immortal and unresting
sea. The dark land lay alone in the midst of waters, like a mighty ship
bestarred with vigilant lights--a ship carrying the burden of millions
of lives--a ship freighted with dross and with jewels, with gold and with
steel. She towered up immense and strong, guarding priceless
traditions and untold suffering, sheltering glorious memories and base
forgetfulness, ignobl