s take our places in the galleys again. Put on
the chain. Misery is come back. We are sinking again. A hand, the
fearful hand which we cannot see, but the weight of which we feel ever
upon us, has suddenly struck us back towards the dark point of our
destiny. Be it so. We will bear up. Only I will not have her ill. I must
seem a fool to talk aloud like this, when I am alone; but she must feel
she has some one near her when she awakes. What shall I do if somebody
awakes her suddenly! No noise, in the name of Heaven! A sudden shock
which would awake her suddenly would be of no use. It will be a pity if
anybody comes by. I believe that every one on board is asleep. Thanks be
to Providence for that mercy. Well, and Homo? Where is he, I wonder? In
all this confusion I forgot to tie him up. I do not know what I am
doing. It is more than an hour since I have seen him. I suppose he has
been to look for his supper somewhere ashore. I hope nothing has
happened to him. Homo! Homo!"

Homo struck his tail softly on the planks of the deck.

"You are there. Oh! you are there! Thank God for that. If Homo had been
lost, it would have been too much to bear. She has moved her arm.
Perhaps she is going to awake. Quiet, Homo! The tide is turning. We
shall sail directly. I think it will be a fine night. There is no wind:
the flag droops. We shall have a good passage. I do not know what moon
it is, but there is scarcely a stir in the clouds. There will be no
swell. It will be a fine night. Her cheek is pale; it is only weakness!
No, it is flushed; it is only the fever. Stay! It is rosy. She is well!
I can no longer see clearly. My poor Homo, I no longer see distinctly.
So we must begin life afresh. We must set to work again. There are only
we two left, you see. We will work for her, both of us! She is our
child, Ah! the vessel moves! We are off! Good-bye, London! Good evening!
good-night! To the devil with horrible London!"

He was right. He heard the dull sound of the unmooring as the vessel
fell away from the wharf. Abaft on the poop a man, the skipper, no
doubt, just come from below, was standing. He had slipped the hawser and
was working the tiller. Looking only to the rudder, as befitted the
combined phlegm of a Dutchman and a sailor, listening to nothing but the
wind and the water, bending against the resistance of the tiller, as he
worked it to port or starboard, he looked in the gloom of the after-deck
like a phantom bearing a beam