set
glow, the sea darkened through all tints of violet, amethyst, indigo.
The horizon line sharpened so clearly that he could distinguish the
tossing profile of waves wetting the sky. "A red sky at night is the
sailor's delight," he said to himself. He switched on the port and
starboard lights and the masthead lanterns, then lashed the wheel while
he went below for supper. He did not know exactly where he was, for he
seemed to have steamed clean off the chart; but as he conned the helm
that evening, and leaned over the lighted binnacle, he had a feeling
that he was not far from some destiny. With cheerful assurance he lashed
the wheel again, and turned in. He woke once in the night, and leaped
from the hammock with a start. He thought he had heard a sound of
barking.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next morning he sighted land. Coming out on the bridge, the whole
face of things was changed. The sea-colour had lightened to a tawny
green; gulls dipped and hovered; away on the horizon lay a soft blue
contour. "Land Ho!" he shouted superbly, and wondered what new country
he had discovered. He ran up a hoist of red and yellow signal flags, and
steered gaily toward the shore.

It had grown suddenly cold: he had to fetch Captain Scottie's pea-jacket
to wear at the wheel. On the long spilling crests, that crumbled and
spread running layers of froth in their hurry shoreward, the Pomerania
rode home. She knew her landfall and seemed to quicken. Steadily
swinging on the jade-green surges, she buried her nose almost to the
hawse-pipes, then lifted until her streaming forefoot gleamed out of a
frilled ruffle of foam.

Gissing, too, was eager. A tingling buoyancy and impatience took hold
of him: he fidgeted with sheer eagerness for life. Land, the beloved
stability of our dear and only earth, drew and charmed him. Behind was
the senseless, heartbreaking sea. Now he could discern hills rising in
a gilded opaline light. In the volatile thin air was a quick sense of
strangeness. A new world was close about him: a world that he could see,
and feel, and inhale, and yet knew nothing of.

Suddenly a great humility possessed him. He had been froward and silly
and vain. He had shouted arrogantly at Beauty, like a noisy tourist in
a canyon; and the only answer, after long waiting, had been the paltry
diminished echo of his own voice. He thought shamefully of his follies.
What matter how you name God or in what words you praise Him? In this
ne