but for some
reason, perhaps by contrast with the accepted idea of a captain's wife,
he could not regard her otherwise but as an extremely youthful creature.
At the same time, apart from her exalted position, she exercised over him
the supremacy a woman's earlier maturity gives her over a young man of
her own age. As a matter of fact we can see that, without ever having
more than a half an hour's consecutive conversation together, and the
distances duly preserved, these two were becoming friends--under the eye
of the old man, I suppose.

How he first got in touch with his captain's wife Powell relates in this
way. It was long before his memorable conversation with the mate and
shortly after getting clear of the channel. It was gloomy weather; dead
head wind, blowing quite half a gale; the _Ferndale_ under reduced sail
was stretching close-hauled across the track of the homeward bound ships,
just moving through the water and no more, since there was no object in
pressing her and the weather looked threatening. About ten o'clock at
night he was alone on the poop, in charge, keeping well aft by the
weather rail and staring to windward, when amongst the white, breaking
seas, under the black sky, he made out the lights of a ship. He watched
them for some time. She was running dead before the wind of course. She
will pass jolly close--he said to himself; and then suddenly he felt a
great mistrust of that approaching ship. She's heading straight for
us--he thought. It was not his business to get out of the way. On the
contrary. And his uneasiness grew by the recollection of the forty tons
of dynamite in the body of the _Ferndale_; not the sort of cargo one
thinks of with equanimity in connection with a threatened collision. He
gazed at the two small lights in the dark immensity filled with the angry
noise of the seas. They fascinated him till their plainness to his sight
gave him a conviction that there was danger there. He knew in his mind
what to do in the emergency, but very properly he felt that he must call
the captain out at once.

He crossed the deck in one bound. By the immemorial custom and usage of
the sea the captain's room is on the starboard side. You would just as
soon expect your captain to have his nose at the back of his head as to
have his state-room on the port side of the ship. Powell forgot all
about the direction on that point given him by the chief. He flew over
as I said, stamped with