is is the deuce
of an adventure--something you read about; and it is my first voyage as
second mate--and I am only twenty--and here I am lasting it out as well
as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to the mark. I was pleased.
I would not have given up the experience for worlds. I had moments of
exultation. Whenever the old dismantled craft pitched heavily with her
counter high in the air, she seemed to me to throw up, like an appeal,
like a defiance, like a cry to the clouds without mercy, the words
written on her stern: '_Judea_, London. Do or Die.'

"O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To
me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal
for a freight--to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trial of life.
I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret--as you would
think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her....
Pass the bottle.

"One night when tied to the mast, as I explained, we were pumping
on, deafened with the wind, and without spirit enough in us to wish
ourselves dead, a heavy sea crashed aboard and swept clean over us. As
soon as I got my breath I shouted, as in duty bound, 'Keep on, boys!'
when suddenly I felt something hard floating on deck strike the calf of
my leg. I made a grab at it and missed. It was so dark we could not see
each other's faces within a foot--you understand.

"After that thump the ship kept quiet for a while, and the thing,
whatever it was, struck my leg again. This time I caught it--and it was
a saucepan. At first, being stupid with fatigue and thinking of nothing
but the pumps, I did not understand what I had in my hand. Suddenly it
dawned upon me, and I shouted, 'Boys, the house on deck is gone. Leave
this, and let's look for the cook.'

"There was a deck-house forward, which contained the galley, the cook's
berth, and the quarters of the crew. As we had expected for days to see
it swept away, the hands had been ordered to sleep in the cabin--the
only safe place in the ship. The steward, Abraham, however, persisted
in clinging to his berth, stupidly, like a mule--from sheer fright
I believe, like an animal that won't leave a stable falling in an
earthquake. So we went to look for him. It was chancing death, since
once out of our lashings we were as exposed as if on a raft. But we
went. The house was shattered as if a shell had exploded inside. Most
of it had gone overboard--stove, men'