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Smith - the old gentleman - was as usual sitting on the skylight near her head, brooding over the long chair but by no means inimical, as far as his unreadable face went, to those conversations of the two youngest people on board. In fact they seemed to give him some pleasure. Now and then he would raise his faded china eyes to the animated face of Mr. Powell thoughtfully. When the young sailor was by, the old man became less rigid, and when his daughter, on rare occasions, smiled at some artless tale of Mr. Powell, the inexpressive face of "Mr. Smith" reflected dimly that flash of evanescent mirth. For Mr. Powell had come now to entertain his captain's wife with anecdotes from the not very distant past when he was a boy, on board various ships, - funny things do happen on board ship. Flora was quite surprised at times to find herself amused. She was even heard to laugh twice in the course of a month. It was not a loud sound but it was startling enough at the after-end of the *Ferndale* where low tones or silence were the rule. The second time this happened the captain himself must have been startled somewhere down below; because he emerged from the depths of his unobtrusive existence and began his tramping on the opposite side of the poop.

Almost immediately he called his young second officer over to him. This was not done in displeasure. The glance he fastened on Mr. Powell conveyed a sort of approving wonder. He engaged him in desultory conversation as if for the only purpose

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of keeping a man who could provoke such a sound, near his
person. Mr. Powell felt himself liked. He felt it. Liked
by that haggard, restless man who threw at him disconnected
phrases to which his answers were, "Yes Sir, "No, Sir", "Oh,
certainly," "I suppose so, Sir," - and might have been, clearly
anything else for all the other cared. him

It was then, Mr. Powell told me, that he discovered
in himself an already old-established liking for Captain
Anthony. He also felt sorry for him without being able to
discover the origins of that sympathy of which he had be-
come so suddenly aware.

Meantime "Mr. Smith", bending forward stiffly as
though he had a hinged back, was speaking to his daughter.

She was a child no longer. He wanted to know if she
believed in - in hell. In eternal punishment?

His peculiar voice, as if filtered through cotton-
wool was inaudible on the other side of the deck. Poor Flora,
taken very much unawares, made an inarticulate murmur, shook
her head vaguely, and glanced in the direction of the pacing
Anthony who was not looking her way. It was no use glancing
in that direction. Of young Powell, leaning against the
mizzen-mast and facing his captain she could only see the shoulder
and part of a blue serge back.

And the unworried, unaccented voice of her father
went on tormenting her.

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"You see, you must understand. When I came out of gaol it was with joy. That is, my soul was fairly torn in two - but anyway to see you happy - I had made up my mind to that. Once I could be sure that you were happy then of course I would have had no reason to care for life—strictly speaking—which is all right for an old man; though naturally ... no reason to wish for death either. But this sort of life! What sense, what meaning, what value has it either for you or for me? It's just sitting down to look at death. That's coming, coming. What else is it? I don't know how you can put up with that. I don't think you can stand it for long. Some day you will jump overboard."

Captain Anthony had stopped for a moment staring ahead from the break of the poop and poor Flora sent at his back a look of despairing appeal which would have moved a heart of stone. But as though she had done nothing he did not stir in the least. She got out of the long chair and went towards the companion. Her father followed carrying a few small objects, a handbag, her handkerchief, a book. They went down together.

It was only then that Captain Anthony turned, looked at the place they had vacated and resumed his tramping, but not his desulotry conversation with his second officer. His nervous exasperation had grown so much that now very often he used to lose control of his voice. If he did not watch

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himself it would suddenly die in his throat. He had to
make sure before he ventured on the simplest saying, an
order, a remark on the wind, a simple good-morning. That's
why his utterance was abrupt, his answers to people
startlingly brusque and often not forthcoming at all.

It happens to the most resolute of men to find himself
at grips not only with unknown forces, but with a well known
force the real might of which he had not understood. Anthony
had discovered that he was not the proud master but the chafing
captive of his generosity. It rose in front of him like a
wall which his respect for himself forbade him to scale. He
said to himself: "Yes, I was a fool - but she has trusted me!"
Trusted! A terrible word to any man somewhat exceptional
in a world in which success has never been found in renuncia-
tion and good faith. And it must also be said, in order not
to make Anthony more stupidly sublime than he was, that the
behaviour of Flora kept him at a distance. The girl was afraid
to add to the exasperation of her father. It was her unhappy
lot to be made more wretched by the only affection which she
could not suspect. She could not be angry with it, however,
and out of deference for that exaggerated sentiment she hardly
dared to look otherwise than by stealth at the man whose
masterful compassion had carried her off. And quite unable
to understand the extent of Anthony's delicacy, she said to
herself that "he didn't care". He probably was beginning at

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bottom to detest her - like the governess, like the maiden lady,
like the German woman, like Mrs. Fyne, like Mr. Fyne -
only he was extraordinary, he was generous. At the same
time she had moments of irritation. He was violent
headstrong - perhaps stupid. Well, he had had his way.

A man who has had his way is seldom happy, for,
generally he finds that the way does not lead very far on
this earth of desires which can never be fully satisfied.
Anthony had entered with extreme precipitation the enchanted
gardens of Armida saying to himself "At last!" As to Armida,
herself, he was not going to offer her any violence. But
now he had discovered that all the enchantment was in Armida
herself, in Armida's smiles. This Armida did not smile.
She existed, unapproachable, behind the blank wall of his
renunciation. His force, fit for action, experienced the
impatience, the indignation, almost the despair of his
vitality arrested, bound down, stilled, and being slowly,
progressively worn down, frittered away by Time, by that force
blind and insensible, which seems inert and yet uses one's
life up by its imperceptible action, dropping minute after
minute on one's living heart like drops of water wearing
down a stone.

He upbraided himself. What else could he have
expected? He had rushed in like a ruffian; he had dragged the
poor defenceless thing by the hair of her head, as it were,

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on board that ship. It was really atrocious. Nothing assured him that his person could be attractive to this or any other woman. And his proceedings were enough in themselves to make anyone odious. He must have been bereft of his senses. She must fatally detest and fear him.

Nothing could make up for such brutality. And yet somehow he resented this very attitude which seemed to him completely justifiable. Surely he was not too monstrous (morally) to be looked at frankly sometimes. But no! She wouldn't. Well, perhaps, some day .... Only he was not going ever to attempt to beg for forgiveness. With the repulsion she felt for his person she would certainly misunderstand the most guarded words, the most careful advances. Never! Never!

And it would occur to him at the end of such meditations that death was not an unfriendly visitor after all. No wonder then that even young Powell, his faculties having been put on the alert, became confident of the omniscient Franklyn, began to think that there was something unusual about the man who had given him his chance in life. He was thinking to himself that yes, decidedly, his captain was "strange". There was something wrong somewhere, he said to himself, never guessing that his young and candid eyes were in the presence of a passion profound, tyrannical and mortal, strong like an instinct, discovering its own existence, astounded at feeling itself helpless and dismayed at finding itself incurable.

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He never before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs. Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognisance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards the companion and go down below with sympathetic if utterly uncomprehending eyes.

Shortly afterwards, "Mr. Smith", came up alone and manifested a desire for a little conversation. He, too, if not so mysterious as the captain, was not very comprehensible to Mr. Powell's uninformed candour. He often favoured thus the second officer, his talk alluded somewhat enigmatically and often without visible connection to Mr. Powell's friendliness towards himself and his daughter. "For I am well aware that we have no friends on board this ship, my dear young man," he would add, "except yourself. Flora feels that too."

And Mr. Powell, flattered and embarrassed, could but emit a vague murmur of protest. For the statement was true in a sense, though the fact was in itself insignificant. The feelings of the ship's company could not possibly matter to the Captain's wife and to Mr. Smith - her father. Why the latter should so often allude to it was what surprised our Mr. Powell. This was by no means the first occasion. More

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like the twentieth rather. And in his weak voice, with his monotonous intonation, leaning over the rail and looking at the water the other continued this conversation, or rather his remarks, remarks of such a monstrous nature that Mr. Powell had no option but to accept them for gruesome jesting.

"For instance," said Mr. Smith, "that mate, Franklin, I believe he would just as soon see us both overboard as not."

"It's not so bad as that," laughed Mr. Powell, feeling uncomfortable, because his mind did not accommodate itself easily to exaggeration of statement. "He isn't a bad chap really," he added, very conscious of Mr. Franklin's offensive manner of which instances were not far to seek. "He's such a fool as to be jealous. He has been with the Captain for years. It's not for me to say, perhaps, but I think the Captain has spoiled all that gang of old servants. They are like a lot of pet old dogs. Wouldn't let anybody come near him if they could help it. I've never seen anything like it. And the second mate, I believe, was like that too."

"Well. He isn't here, luckily. There would have been one more enemy," said Mr. Smith. "There's enough of them without him. And you being here instead of him makes it much more pleasant for my daughter and myself. One feels there may be a friend in need. For really, for a woman all alone on board ship amongst a lot of unfriendly men."

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"But Mrs. Anthony is not alone," exclaimed Powell.
"There's you, and there's the......"

Mr. Smith interrupted him.

"Nobody's immortal. And there are times when one
feels ashamed to live. Such an evening as this for instance."

It was a lovely evening; the colours of a splendid
sunset had died out and the breath of a warm breeze seemed to
have smoothed out the sea. Away to the south the sheet
lightning was like the flashing of an enormous lantern hidden
under the horizon. In order to change the conversation Mr.
Powell said:

"Anyway no one can charge you with being a Jonah, Mr. Smith. We have had a magnificent quick passage so far. The Captain ought to be pleased. And I suppose you are not sorry either."

This diversion was not successful. Mr. Smith emitted
a sort of bitter chuckle and said: "Jonah! That's the
fellow that was thrown overboard by some sailors. It seems
to me it's very easy at sea to get rid of a person one does
not like. The sea does not give up its dead as the earth
does."

"You forget the whale, Sir," said young Powell.

Mr. Smith gave a start. "Eh? What whale? Oh!
Jonah. I wasn't thinking of Jonah. I was thinking of this
passage

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which seems so quick to you. But only think what it is to me?
It isn't a life going about the sea like this. And, for
instance, if one were to fall ill, there isn't a doctor to
find out what's the matter with one. It's worrying. It
makes me anxious at times."

"Is Mrs. Anthony not feeling well?" asked Powell.
But Mr. Smith's remark was not meant for Mrs. Anthony. She
was well. He himself was well. It was the Captain's health
that did not seem quite satisfactory. Had Mr. Powell noticed
his appearance?

Mr. Powell didn't know enough of the Captain to
judge. He couldn't tell. But he observed thoughtfully that
Mr. Franklin had been saying the same thing. And Franklin
had known the Captain for years. The mate was quite worried
about it.

This intelligence startled Mr. Smith considerably
"Does he think he is in danger of dying?" he exclaimed with
an animation quite extraordinary for him, which horrified Mr.
Powell.

"Heavens! Die! No, don't you alarm yourself, Sir.
I've never heard a word about danger from Mr. Franklin."

"Well, well," sighed Mr. Smith and left the poop
for the saloon rather abruptly.

As a matter of fact Mr. Franklin had been on deck for
some considerable time. He had come to relieve young Powell;

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but seeing him engaged in talk with the "enemy" - with one of
the "enemies" at least - had kept at a distance, which, the
poop of the "Ferndale" being over eighty feet long, he had no
difficulty in doing. Mr. Powell saw him at the head of the
ladder leaning on his elbow, melancholy and silent. "Oh!
Here you are, Sir."

"Here I am. Here I've been ever since six o'clock.
Didn't want to interrupt the pleasant conversation. If you
like to put in half of your watch below jawing with a dear friend
that's not my affair. Funny taste tho'"

"He isn't a bad chap," said the impartial Powell.

The mate snorted angrily, tapping the deck with his
foot; then: "Isn't he? Well, give him my love when you come
together again for another nice long yarn."

"I say, Mr. Franklin, I wonder the Captain don't
take offence at your manners."

"The Captain. I wish to goodness he would start a
row with me. Then I should know at least I am somebody on
board. I'd welcome it Mr. Powell. I'd rejoice. And dam'
me I would talk back too till I roused him. He's a shadow
of himself. He walks about his ship like a ghost. He's
fading away right before our eyes. But of course you don't
see. You don't care a hang. Why should you?"

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Mr. Powell did not wait for more. He went down on the main deck. Without taking the mate's jeremiads seriously he put them beside the words of Mr. Smith. He had grown already attached to Captain Anthony. There was something not only attractive but compelling in the man. Only it is very difficult for youth to believe in the menace of death. Not in the fact itself, but in its proximity to a breathing, moving, talking, superior human being, showing no sign of disease. And Mr. Powell thought that this talk was all nonsense. But his curiosity was awakened. There was something, and at any time some circumstance might occur...... No, he would never find out...... There was nothing to find out, most likely. Mr. Powell went to his room where he tried to read a book he had already read a good many times. Presently a bell rang for the officers' supper.

200.

CHAPTER SIX.

A moonless night, thick with stars, above,
on the water, one by one.

*above,*
*one by one*

In the mess-room Powell found Mr. Franklin hacking at a piece of cold salt beef with a table knife. The mate, fiery in the face and rolling his eyes over that task, explained that the carver belonging to the mess-room could not be found. The steward, present also, complained savagely of the cook. The fellow got things into his galley and then lost them. Mr. Franklin tried to pacify him with mournful firmness.

"There, there! That will do. We who have been all these years together in the ship have other things to think about than quarrelling among ourselves."

Mr. Powell thought with exasperation: "Here he goes again," for this utterance had nothing cryptic for him. The steward having withdrawn morosely, he was not surprised to hear the mate strike the usual note. That morning the mizzen topsail tie had carried away, (probably a defective link) and something like forty feet of chain and wire-rope, mixed up with a few heavy iron blocks had crashed down from aloft on the poop with a terrifying racket.

"Did you notice the Captain then, Mr. Powell. Did you notice?"

201.

Powell confessed frankly that he was too scared
himself when all that lot of gear came down on deck to
notice anything.

"The gin-block missed his head by an inch,"
went on the mate impressively. "I wasn't three feet from him.
And what did he do? Did he shout, or jump, or even look
aloft to see if the yard wasn't coming down too about our
ears in a dozen pieces? It's a marvel it didn't. No, he
just stopped short - no wonder; he must have felt the
wind of that iron gin-block on his face - looked down at
it, there, lying close to his foot - and went on again.
I believe he didn't even blink. It isn't natural. The man
is stupefied."

He sighed ridiculously and Mr. Powell had
suppressed a grin, when the mate added as if he couldn't
contain himself.

"He will be taking to drink next. Mark my
words. That's the next thing."

Mr. Powell was disgusted.

"You are so fond of the Captain and yet you don't
seem to care what you say about him. I haven't been with
him for seven years, but I know he isn't the sort of man that
takes to drink. And then - why the devil should he?"

"Why the devil, you ask. Devil - eh? Well, no
man is safe from the devil - and that's answer enough for

202.

you," wheezed Mr. Franklin not unkindly. "There was a
time, a long time ago, when I nearly took to drink myself.
What do you say to that?"

Mr. Powell expressed a polite incredulity. The
thick, congested mate seemed on the point of bursting with
despondency. "That was bad example though. I was
young and fell into dangerous company, made a fool of
myself—yes, as true as you see me sitting here. Drank
to forget. Thought it a great dodge."

Powell looked at the grotesque Franklin with
awakened interest and with that half-amused sympathy
with which we receive unprovoked confidences from com-
parative strangers, from men with whom we have no sort
of affinity. And at the same time he began to look
upon him more seriously. Experience has its prestige.
And the mate continued.

"If it hadn't been for the old lady, I would
have gone to the devil. I remembered her in time.
Nothing like having an old lady to look after to steady
a chap and make him face things. But as bad luck
would have it, Captain Anthony has no mother living,
not a blessed soul belonging to him as far as I know.
Oh, aye, I fancy he said once something to me of a
sister. But she's married. She don't need him. Yes.

203.

In the old days he used to talk to me as if we had been brothers," exaggerated the mate sentimentally. 'Franklin,' - he would say - 'this ship is my nearest relation and she isn't likely to turn against me. And I suppose you are the man I've known the longest in the world.' That's how he used to speak to me. Can I turn my back on him? He has turned his back on his ship ; that's what it has come to. He has no one now but his old Franklin. But what's a fellow to do to put things back as they were and should be. Should be - I say!'

His starting eyes had a terrible fixity. Mr. Powell's irresistible thought, "he resembles a boiled lobster in distress", was followed by <u>incredibl</u>e. "Good Lord," he said, "you don't mean to hint that Captain Anthony has fallen into bad company. What is it you want to save him from?"

"I do mean it," affirmed the mate and the very absurdity of the statement made it impressive, because it seemed so absolutely audacious. "Well, you have a cheek," said Mr. Powell, feeling mentally helpless. "I have a notion the Captain would half kill you if he were to know how you carry on."

"And welcome," uttered the fervently devoted Franklin. "I am willing, if he would only clear the ship afterwards of that... You are but a youngster and you

204.

may go and tell him what you like. Let him knock the
stuffing out of his old Franklin first and think it over
afterwards. Anything to pull him together. But of course
you wouldn't. You are all right. Only you don't know
that things are sometimes different from what they look.
There are friendships that are no friendships, and marriages
that are no marriages... 🤷 Phoo! Likely to be right — wasn't
it? Never a hint to me. I go off on leave and when I
come back, there it is — all over, settled! Not a word
before hand. No warning. If only: 'What do you think of
it, Franklin?' — or anything of the sort. And that's a
man who hardly ever did anything without asking my advice.
Why! He couldn't take over a new coat from the tailor
without... 🤷 First thing, directly the fellow came on
board with some new clothes, whether in London or in
China, it would be: 'Pass the word along there for Mr.
Franklin. Mr. Franklin wanted in the cabin.' In I
would go. 'Just look at my back, Franklin. Fits all
right, dosen't it?' And I would say: 'First rate, Sir,'
or whatever was the truth of it. That or anything else.
Always the truth of it. Always. And well he knew it; and
that's why he dared not speak right out. Talking about
workmen, alterations, cabins... 🤷 Phoo! ... 🤷 instead of a
straightforward — 'Wish me joy, Mr. Franklin!' Yes, that
was the way to let me know. God only knows what they

205.

are - perhaps she isn't his daughter any more than she
is.... She doesn't resemble that old fellow. Not a bit.
Not a bit. It's very awful. You may well open your
mouth, young man. But for goodness sake, you who are
mixed up with that lot, keep your eyes and ears open too
in case - in case of.... I don't know what. Anything.
One wonders what can happen here at sea! Nothing. Yet
when a man is called a jailer behind his back...

Mr. Franklin hid his face in his hands for a
moment and Powell shut his mouth, which indeed had been
open, and slipped out of the mess-room noiselessly. "The
mate's crazy," he thought. It was his firm conviction.
Nevertheless, that evening, he felt his inner tranquillity
disturbed at last by the force and obstinacy of this craze.
He couldn't dismiss it with the contempt it deserved.
Had the word "jailer", really been pronounced? A strange
word for the mate to even imagine he had heard. A sense-
less unlikely word. But this word being the only clear
and definite statement in these grotesque and dismal
ravings was comparatively restful to his mind. Powell's
mind was fixed on it still when he came up at eight o'clock
to take charge of the deck. It was a moonless night, thick
with stars above, very dark on the water, with a steady
air from the west from a strong wind that kept the sails

206.

asleep. Franklin mustered both watches in low tones as if it were for a funeral, then approaching Powell.

"The course is East-south-east," said the chief mate.

"East-south-east, Sir."

"Everything's set, Mr. Powell."

"All right, Sir."

The other lingered, his sentimental eyes gleamed silvery in the shadowy face. "A quiet night before us. I don't know that there are any special orders. A settled, quiet night. I daresay you won't see the Captain. Once upon a time this was the watch he used to come up and start a chat with either of us then on deck. But now he sits in that infernal stern-cabin and mopes. Jailer - eh?"

Mr. Powell walked away from the mate and when at some distance said, "Damn!" quite heartily. It was a confounded nuisance. It had ceased to be funny; that hostile word, "jailer", had given the situation an air of reality.

Franklin's grotesque mortal envelope had disappeared from the poop to seek its needful repose, if only the worried soul would let it rest a while. Mr. Powell, half sorry for the thick little man, wondered whether it would

207.

let him. For himself, he recognised that the charm of
a quiet watch on deck when one may let one's thoughts
roam in space and time had been spoiled without remedy.
What *shocked* him most was the implied aspersion of
complicity in Mrs. Anthony. It angered him. In his own
words to me, he felt very "enthusiastic" about Mrs. Anthony.
"Enthusiastic" is good; especially as he couldn't exactly
explain to me what he meant by it. But he felt enthusiastic,
he says. That silly Franklin must have been dreaming.
That was it. He had dreamed it all. Ass. Yet the
injurious word stuck in *Powell's* mind with its associated ideas
of prisoner, of escape. He became very uncomfortable. And
just then (it might have been half-an-hour or more since
he had relieved Franklin) just then Mr. Smith came up on the
poop alone, like a gliding shadow and leaned over the rail
by his side. *Tying* Powell was affected disagreeably by his
presence. He made a movement to go away but the other began
to talk - and *Powell* remained where he was as if retained by a
mysterious compulsion. The conversation started by Mr.
Smith had nothing peculiar. He began to talk of mail-boats
in general and in the end seemed anxious to discover what
were the services from *Port Elizabeth*, *Mr. Powell* did not
know for certain but imagined that there must be communication
with England at least twice a month. "Are you thinking
of leaving us, sir; of going home by steam? Perhaps with

208.

Mrs. Anthony," he asked anxiously.

"No! No! How can I?" Mr. Smith got quite agitated, for him, which did not amount to much. He was just asking for the sake of something to talk about. No idea at all of going home. One could not always do what one wanted and that's why there were moments when one felt ashamed to live. This did not mean that one did not want to live.
Oh, no!

He spoke with careless slowness, pausing frequently and in such a low voice that Powell had to strain his hearing to catch the phrases dropped overboard as it were. And indeed they seemed not worth the effort. It was like the aimless talk of a man pursuing a secret train of thought far removed from the idle words we so often utter only to keep in touch with our fellow beings. An hour passed. It seemed as though Mr. Smith could not make up his mind to go below. He repeated himself. Again he spoke of lives which one was ashamed of. It was necessary to put up with such lives as long as there was no way out, no possible issue. He even alluded once more to mail-boat services on the East coast of Africa and Mr. Powell had to tell him once more that he knew nothing about them.

"Every fortnight, I thought you said," insisted Mr. Smith. He stirred, seemed to detach himself from the rail with difficulty. His long, slender figure straightened

209.

into stiffness, as if hostile to the enveloping soft peace
of air and sea and sky, emitted into the night a weak murmur
which Mr. Powell fancied was the word, "Abominable"
repeated three times, but which passed into the faintly
louder declaration: "The moment has come ~~to go to~~ bed ~~to be~~," followed by a just audible sigh.

"I sleep very well," added Mr. Smith in his re-
strained tone. "But it is the moment one opens one's eyes
that is horrible at sea. These days! Oh, these days! I
wonder how anybody can....."

"I like the life," observed Mr. Powell.

"Oh, you, You have only yourself to think of. You
have made your bed. Well, it's very pleasant to feel that
you are friendly to us. My daughter has taken quite a
liking to you. Mr. Powell."

He murmured, "Good night" and glided away rigidly.
Young Powell asked himself with some distaste what was the
meaning of these utterances. His mind had been worried an
into that questioning attitude by no other person than the
grotesque Franklin. Suspicion was not natural to him. And
he took good care to carefully separate in his thoughts Mrs.
Anthony from this man of enigmatic words — her father.
Presently he observed that the (dead-lights of Mr. Smith's
room which were on the bridge had gone out. The

210.

old gentleman had been surprisingly quick in getting into
bed. Shortly afterwards the lamp in the foremost skylight
of the saloon was turned out; and this was the sign that the
steward had taken in the tray and had retired for the night.

Young Powell had settled down to the regular officer-of-the-watch tramp in the dense shadow of the world with the stars high above his head and on earth only a few gleams of light about the ship. The lamp in the after skylight was kept burning through the night. There were also the dead-lights of the stern-cabins glimmering dully in the deck, far aft, catching his eyes when he turned to walk that way. The brasses of the wheel glittered too, with the dimly lit figure of the man detached, as if phosphorescent, against the black night background of the horizon.

And in the Powell, in the silence of the ship, reinforced by the great silent stillness of the world, said to himself that there was something mysterious in such beings as the absurd Franklin, and even in such beings as himself. It was a strange and almost improper thought to occur to the officer of the watch of a ship on the high seas on no matter how quiet a night. Why on earth was he bothering his head? Why couldn't he dismiss all these people from his mind? And asked himself. It was as if the mate had infected him with his own diseased constitution. He would not have believed it possible that he should be so foolish.

211.

But he was - clearly. He was foolish in a way totally unforeseen by himself. And, pushing this self-analysis further, he reflected that the springs of his conduct were just as obscure.

"I may be catching myself doing things of which I have no conception," he said. And as he was passing near the mizzen-mast he perceived a coil of rope left lying on the deck by the oversight of the sweepers. By an impulse which had nothing mysterious in it, he stooped as he went by with the intention of picking it up and hanging it up on its proper pin. This movement brought his head down to the level with the glazed end of the after skylight—the lighted skylight of the most private part of the saloon, consecrated to the exclusiveness of Captain Anthony's married life; the part, let me remind you, cut off from the rest of that forbidden space by a pair of heavy curtains. I mention these curtains because at this point Mr. Powell himself recalled the existence of that unusual arrangement to my mind."

He recalled them with simple-minded compunction at that distance of time. He said: "You understand that directly I stooped to pick up that coil of running gear—the spanker foot-outhaul, I think it was—I perceived that I could see right into that part of the saloon that meant to make particularly private. Do you understand me?" he insisted.

212.

I told him that I understood; and he proceeded to call my attention to the wonderful linking up of small facts, with something of awe left yet, after all these years, at the precise workmanship of chance, fate, providence, we call it what you will! "For, observe, Mr. Marlow," he said, "making at me very round eyes which contrasted funnily with the austere touch of grey on his temples," "Observe, my dear yellow man, that everything depended on the men who cleared up the poop in the evening leaving that coil of rope on the deck, and on the topsail-tie carrying away in a most incomprehensible and surprising manner earlier in the day, and the end of the chain whipping round the coaming and shivering to bits part of the coloured-glass pane at the end of the skylight. It had the arms of the city of Liverpool on it; I don't know why unless because the Ferndale was registered in Liverpool. It was very thick plate glass. Anyhow, the upper part got smashed, and directly we had attended to things aloft Mr. Franklin had set the carpenter to patch up the damage with some pieces of plain glass. I don't know where they got them; I think the people who fitted up new bookcases in the Captain's room had left some spare panes. Chips was there the whole afternoon on his knees, messing with putty and red-lead, and by the time it was done, not by any means, but it would serve to keep the weather out and let the light in. Clear glass. And of

213.

course I was not thinking of it. I just stooped to pick
up that rope and found my head within three inches of that
clear glass, and dash it all! I found myself out. Not
half an hour before I was saying to myself that it was im-
possible to tell what was in people's heads or at the back
of their talk, or what they were likely to be up to. And
here I found myself up to as low a trick as you can well
think of. For, after I stooped, there I remained prying,
spying anyway looking where I had no business to look.
Not consciously at first may be. He who has eyes, you know,
nothing can stop him from seeing things as long as there
are things to see in front of him. What I saw at first
was the end of the table and the tray clamped on to it, a
patent tray for sea use, fitted with holders for a couple
of decanters, water-jug and glasses. The glitter of these
things caught my eye first; but what I saw next was the
Captain down there, alone as far as I could see; and I could
see pretty well the whole of that part up to the cottage
piano, dark against the satin-wood panelling of the bulk-
head. And I remained looking. I did. And I don't know
that I was ashamed of myself either, then. It was the fault
of that Franklin, always talking of the man, making free
with him to that extent that really he seemed to have become
our property, his and mine, in a way. It's funny, but one
had that feeling about Captain Anthony. To watch him was

214.

not so much worse than listening to Franklin talking him over. Well, it's no use making excuses for what's inexculsable. I watched; but I dare say you know that there could have been nothing inimical in this low behaviour of mine. On the contrary. I'll tell you now what he was doing. He was helping himself out of a decanter. I saw every movement, and I said to myself mockingly as though jeering at Franklin in my thoughts, 'Hello! Here's the captain taking to drink at last.' He poured a little brandy or whatever it was in a long glass, filled it with water, drank about a fourth of it and stood the glass back into the holder. Every sign of a bad drinking bout, I was saying to myself, feeling quite amused at the notions of that Franklin. He seemed to me an enormous ass, with his jealousy and his fears. At that rate a month would not have been enough for anybody to get drunk. The Captain sat down in one of the swivel armchairs fixed around the table; I had him right under me and as he turned the chair slightly I was looking, I may say, down his back. He took another little sip and then reached for a book which was lying on the table. I had not noticed it before. Altogether the proceedings of a desperate drunkard — weren't they? He opened the book and held it before his face. If this was the way he took to drink, then I needn't worry. He was in no danger of that, and as to any other, I assure you no human being could have looked safer than he did down there.

215.

while I felt the greatest contempt for Franklin just then, I looked at Captain Anthony sitting there with a glass of weak brandy and water at his elbow and reading in the cahin of his ship, on a quiet night—the quietest, perhaps the finest, of a prosperous passage. And if you wonder why I didn't leave off my ugly spying I will tell you how it was. Captain Anthony was a great reader just about that time; and I, too, I have a great liking for books. To this day I can't come near a book but I must know what it is about. It was a thick-ish volume he had there, small close print, double columns— I can see it now. What I wanted to make out was the title at the top of the page. I have very good eyes but he wasn't holding it conveniently—I mean for me up there. Well, it was a history of some kind, that much I read and then suddenly he bangs the book face down on the table, jumps up as if something had bitten him and walks away aft.

"Funny thing shame is. I had been behaving badly and aware of it in a way, but I didn't feel really ashamed till the fright of being found out in my honourable occupation drove me from it. I slunk away to the forward end of the poop and lounged about there, my face and ears burning and glad it was a dark night, expecting every moment to hear the captain's footsteps behind me. For I made sure he was coming on deck. Presently I thought I had rather meet him face to face and I walked slowly aft prepared to see him emerge from

216.

the companion before I got that far. I even thought of his
having detected me by some means. But it was impossible,
unless he had eyes in the top part of his head. I
had never had a view of his face down there. It was im-
possible; I was safe, but I felt very mean, yet, explain
it as you may, I seemed not to care. And the Captain not
appearing on deck, I had the impulse to go on being mean.
I wanted another peep. I really don't know what was the
beastly influence except that Mr. Franklin's talk was
enough to demoralize any man by raising a sort of unhealthy
curiosity which did away in my case with all the restraints
of common decency.

"I did not mean to risk being caught squatting
in a suspicious attitude by the Captain. There was also
the helmsman to consider. So what I did — I am surprised
at my low cunning — was to sit down naturally on the sky-
light-seat and then by bending forward I found that, as I
expected, I could look down through the upper part of the
end-pane. The worst that could happen to me then, if I re-
mained too long in that position, was to be suspected by the
seaman aft at the wheel of having gone to sleep there. For
the rest my ears would give me sufficient warning of any
movements in the companion.

"But in that way my angle of view was changed.
The field too was smaller. The end of the table, the tray

217.

and the swivel-chair I had right under my eyes. The Captain
had not come back yet. The piano I could not see now; but
on the other hand I had a very oblique downward view of the
curtains drawn across the cabin and cutting off the forward
part of it just about the level of the skylight-end and
only an inch or so from the end of the table. They were
heavy stuff, travelling on a thick brass rod with some con-
trivance to keep the rings from sliding to and fro when
the ship rolled. But just then the ship was as still al-
most as a model shut up in a glass case while the curtains,
joined closely, and, perhaps on purpose, made a little too
long moved no more than a solid wall."

Drop 3 lines here

Marlow got up to get another cigar. The night
was getting on to what I may call its deepest hour, the
hour most favourable to evil purposes of men's hate, de-
spair, or greed - to whatever can whisper into their ears
the unlawful counsels of protest against things that are; the
hour of ill-omened silence and chill and stagnation,
the hour when the criminal plies his trade and the victim
of sleeplessness reaches the lowest depth of dreadful dis-
couragement; the hour before the first sight of dawn. I
know it, because while Marlow was crossing the room I looked
at the clock on the mantelpiece. He however never looked

218.

that way though it is possible that he, too, was aware of
the passage of time. He sat down heavily.

"Our friend Powell," he began again, "was very
anxious that I should understand the topography of that
cabin. I was interested more by its moral atmosphere,
that tension of falsehood, of desperate acting, which tainted
the pure sea-atmosphere into which the magnanimous Anthony
had carried off his conquest and - well - his self-conquest
too, trying to act at the same time like a beast of prey,
a pure spirit and the "most generous of men". Too big an
order clearly because he was nothing of a monster but just
a common mortal, a little more self-willed and self-con-
fident than most, may be, both in his roughness and in his
delicacy.

As to the delicacy of Mr. Powell's proceedings
I'll say nothing. He found a sort of depraved excitement
in watching an unconscious man - and such an attractive
and mysterious man as Captain Anthony at that. He wanted
another peep at him. He surmised that he must come back because
the glass was full, and also the book
put down so brusquely. God knows what sudden pang had made
Anthony jump up so. I am convinced he used reading as an
opiate against the pain of his magnanimity which like all
abnormal growths was gnawing at his healthy substance with cruel

219.

persistence. Perhaps he had rushed into his cabin simply to groan freely in absolute and delicate secrecy. At any rate he tarried there. And what young Powell would have grown weary and compunctious at last if it had not become manifest to him that he had not been alone in the highly incorrect occupation of watching the movements of Captain Anthony.

Powell explained to me that no sound did or perhaps could reach him from the saloon. The first sign — and we must remember that he was using his eyes for all they were worth — was an unaccountable movement of the curtain. It was wavy and very slight; just perceptible in fact to the sharp faculties of a secret watcher; for it can't be denied that our wits are much more alert when engaged in wrong-doing (in which one mustn't be found out) than in a righteous occupation.

He became suspicious, with no one and nothing definite in his mind. He was suspicious of the curtain itself and observed it. It looked very innocent. Then just as he was ready to pull it down to a trick of imagination he saw trembling movements where the two curtains joined. Yes! Somebody else besides himself was watching Captain Anthony. He owns artlessly that this roused his indignation. It was really too much of a good thing. In this state of intense antagonism he was startled to observe tips of fingers fumbling with the dark stuff. Then they grasped the edge

220.

of the further curtain and hung on there, just fingers and
knuckles and nothing else. It made an abominable sight.
He was looking at it with unaccountable repulsion when a
hand came into view; a short, puffy, old, freckled hand pro-
jecting into the lamplight, followed by a white wrist, an
arm in a grey coat-sleeve up to the elbow, beyond the elbow,
extended tremblingly towards the tray. It was weird and
nauseous, fantastic and silly. But instead of grabbing
the bottle as expected, this hand tremulous with senile
eagerness, swerved to the glass, rested on its edge for a
moment (or so it looked from above) and went back with a
jerk. The gripping fingers vanished at the same time, and
Powell staring at the motionless curtains could in-
dulge for a moment the notion that he had been dreaming.

But that notion did not last long. Powell,
after repressing his first impulse to spring for the com-
panion and hammer at the Captain's door, took steps to have
himself relieved by the boatswain. He was in a state of dis-
traction as to feelings and yet lucid as to mind. He re-
mained on the skylight so as to keep his eye on the
tray.

Still the Captain did not appear in the saloon.
"If he had," said Mr. Powell, "I know what to do. I would
have put my elbow through the pane instantly — crash!"

I asked him why?

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concerned." Concerned indeed! He must have been thunderstruck, appalled.

Powell's only distinct aim was to remove the suspected tumbler. He had no other plan, no other intention, no other thought. Do away with it in some manner. Snatch it up and run out with it.

You know that complete mastery of one fixed idea, not a reasonable but an emotional mastery, a sort of concentrated exaltation. Under its empire men rush blindly through fire and water and opposing violence, and nothing can stop them — unless, sometimes, a grain of sand. For his blind purpose (and clearly the thought of Mrs. Anthony was at the bottom of it) Mr. Powell had plenty of time. What checked him at the crucial moment was the familiar, harmless aspect of common things, the steady light, the open book on the table, the solitude, the peace, the home-like effect of the place. He held the glass in his hand; all he had to do was to vanish back beyond the curtains, flee with it noiselessly into the night on deck, fling it unseen overboard. A minute or less. And then all that would have happened would have been the wonder at the utter disappearance of a glass tumbler, a ridiculous riddle in pantry-affairs beyond the wit of anyone on board to solve. The grain of sand against which Powell stumbled in his headlong career was a moment of incredulity in the truth of his own conviction.

223.

because it had failed to affect the safe aspect of familiar things. He doubted his eyes. He must have dreamt it all! "I am dreaming now," he said to himself. And very likely for a few seconds he must have looked like a man in a trance or profoundly asleep on his feet, and with a glass of brandy and water in his hand.

What woke him up and, at the same time fixed his feet immovably to the spot, was a voice asking him what he was doing there in tones of thunder. Or so it sounded to his ears. Anthony, opening the door of his stern-cabin had naturally exclaimed. What could you expect? And the exclamation must have been fairly loud if you consider the nature of the sight which met his eye. There, before him, stood his second officer, a seemingly decent, well-bred young man, who, being on duty, had left the deck and had sneaked into the saloon, apparently for the inexpressibly mean purpose of drinking up what was left of his captain's brandy-and-water. There he was caught absolutely with the glass in his hand.

But the very monstrosity of appearance silenced Anthony after the first exclamation; and as Powell felt himself pierced through and through by the overshadowed glance of his captain. Anthony advanced quietly. The first impulse of Mr. Powell, when discovered, had been to dash the glass

224.

on the deck. He was in a sort of panic. But deep down
within him his wits were working and the idea that if he
did that he could prove nothing and that the story he had
to tell was completely incredible, restrained him. The
Captain came forward slowly. With his eyes now close to his,
Powell, spell-bound, numb all over, managed to lift one
finger to the deck above the explanatory word "nimming"
"Boatswain" on deck."

The Captain moved his head slightly as much as
to say, "That's all right" - and this was all. Powell had
no voice, no strength. The air was unbreathable, thick,
sticky, odious, like hot jelly in which all move-
ments became difficult. He raised the glass a little with
immense difficulty and moved his trammelled lips sufficiently
to form the word.

"Doctored."

Anthony glanced at it for an instant, only for
an instant, and again fastened his eyes on the face of his
second mate. Powell added a fervent "I believe" and put
the glass down on the tray. When the Captain's glance
followed the movement and returned to his face. The young
man pointed a finger once more upwards and squeezed out of his
iron-bound throat five consecutive
words of further explanation. "Through the skylight. The
white pane."

225.

The Captain raised his eyebrows very much at this,
while young Powell, ashamed but desperate, nodded insistently
several times. He meant to say that: Yes. Yes. He had done
that thing. He had been spying.... The Captain's gaze
became thoughtful. And now the confession was over the
iron-bound feeling of Powell's throat passed away giving
place to a general anxiety which from his breast seemed to
extend to all the limbs and organs of his body. His legs
trembled a little, his vision was confused, his mind became
blankly expectant. But he was alert enough. At a movement
of Anthony he screamed in a strangled whisper.

"Don't, sir! Don't touch it."

Powell's
extended

The Captain pushed aside his extended arm, took
up the glass and raised it slowly against the lamplight. The
liquid, of very pale amber colour, was clear, and by a glance
the Captain seemed to call my attention to the
fact. Powell tried to pronounce the word, "dissolved" but
he only thought of it with great energy which failed
to move his lips. Only when Anthony had put down the glass
and turned to him he recovered such a complete command of
his voice that he could keep it down to a hurried, forcible
whisper—a whisper that shook him.

"Doctored! I swear! I have been doctored! I have been!"
swear, doctored! I

Not a feature of the Captain's face moved. His
was a calm to take one's breath away. It did so to Mr. Powell.

226.

Then for the first time Anthony made himself heard to the
point.

"You did!... Who was it?"

And Powell gasped freely at last. "A hand," he
whispered fearfully, "a hand and the arm — only the arm
like this."

He advanced his own, slow, stealthy, tremulous
in faithful reproduction, the tips of two fingers and the
thumb pressed together and hovering above the glass for an
instant — then the swift jerk back, after the deed.

"Like this," he repeated growing excited. "From
behind this." He grasped the curtain and glaring at the
silent Anthony flung it back disclosing the forepart of the
saloon. There was no one to be seen.

Mr Powell had not expected to see anybody. "But,"
he said to me, "I knew very well there was an ear listening
and an eye glued to the crack of a cabin door. Awful thought.
And that door was in that part of the saloon remaining in
the shadow of the other half of the curtain. I pointed at it
and I suppose that old man inside saw me pointing. The Captain
had a wonderful self-command. You couldn't have told anything
from his face. Well, it was perhaps more thoughtful than usual.
And indeed this was something to think about. I couldn't
think steadily. My brain would give a sort of jerk and then
go dead again. I had lost all notion of time, and I might

227.

The Captain
have been looking at him for days and months for all I knew
before I heard the captain whisper to me: "Not a word!"
This jerked me out of that trance and I said: "No! No!
I didn't mean even you!"

"I wanted to explain my conduct, my intentions,
but I read in his eyes that he understood me and I was only
too glad to leave off. And there we were looking at each other,
dumb, brought up short by the question: "What next?"

"I thought Captain Anthony was a man of iron till
I saw him suddenly fling his head to the right and to the
left fiercely, like a wild animal at bay not knowing which way
to break out..."

"Truly," commented Marlow, "brought to bay was
not a bad comparison; a better one than Mr. Powell was
aware of. At that moment the appearance of Flora could not
but bring the tension to the breaking point. She came out
in all innocence but not without vague dread. Anthony's
exclamation on first seeing Powell had reached her in her cabin,
where, it seems, she was brushing her hair. She had heard
the very words. "What are you doing here?" And the unwonted
loudness of the voice -- his voice -- breaking the habitual
stillness of that hour would have startled a person having
much less reason to be constantly apprehensive than the captive

228.

of Anthony's masterful generosity. She had no means to guess to whom the question was addressed and it echoed in her heart, as Anthony's voice always did. Followed the complete silence. She waited, anxious, expectant, till she could stand no longer, and with the weary mental appeal of the overburdened. "My God! What is it now?" she opened the door of her room and looked into the saloon. Her first glance fell on Powell. For a moment, seeing only the second officer with Anthony, she felt relieved and made as if to draw back; but her sharpened perception detected something suspicious in their attitudes, and she came forward slowly.

"I was standing by her. Anthony called Powell, "because I was facing aft. The Captain, noticing my eyes, looked quickly over his shoulder and at once put his finger to his lips to caution me. As if I were likely to let out anything before her. She had on a dressing gown of some grey stuff with red facings and a thick red cord round her waist. Her hair was down. She looked a child; a pale-faced child with big blue eyes and a red mouth a little open showing a glimmer of white teeth. The light fell strongly on her as she came up to the end of the table."

A strange child tho'; she hardly affected one like a child, I remember. Do you know," claimed the Captain. "Mr. Powell who clearly must have been, like many seamen, an industrious reader," said "do you know what she looked at with those big eyes."

229.

and something appealing in her whole expression. She looked like a forsaken elf. Captain Anthony had moved towards her a little to keep her away from my end of the table, where the tray was. I had never seen them so near to each other before, and it made a great contrast. It was wonderful, though, with his beard cut to a point, his swarthy, sunburnt complexion, thin nose and his lean face. There was something African, and so was Captain Anthony. His neck was bare; he had taken off his coat and collar and had drawn on his sleeping jacket in the time that he had been absent from the saloon. I seem to see him now. Mrs. Anthony too. She looked from him to me — I suppose I looked guilty or frightened — and from me to him, trying to guess what was between us two. Then she burst out with a "What has happened?" which seemed addressed to me. I mumbled "Nothing" which she very likely did not hear.

"You must not think that all this had lasted a long time. She had taken fright at our behaviour and turned to the Captain pitifully. "What are you concealing from me?" A straight question — eh? I don't know what the Captain would have made. Before he could even raise his eyes to her she cried out "Ah! Here's papa!" in a sharp tone of relief; but directly afterwards she looked to me and were holeing her breath with appreciation. I was so interested that I went on, and so on, until I was so carried away that I say it, her exclamation made no

230.

connection in my brain at first. I also noticed that she
had sidled up a little nearer to Captain Anthony, before it
occurred to me to turn my head. I can tell you my neck
stiffened in the twisted position from the shock of actually
seeing that old man! He had dared! I suppose you
think I ought to have looked upon him as mad. But I couldn't.
It would have been certainly easier. But I could not! You
should have seen him. First of all he was completely dressed
with his very cap still on his head just as he had left me
on deck two hours before saying in his soft voice: "The moment
has come to go to bed" — while he meant to go and do that
thing and hide in his dark cabin, and watch the stuff do
its work. A cold shudder ran down my back. He had his hands
in the pockets of his jacket, his arms were pressed close
to his thin, upright body, and he shuffled across the cabin
with his short steps. There was a red patch on
each of his old soft cheeks as if somebody had been pinching
them. His hair drooped a little, and looked with a sort of
underhand expectation at the Captain and Mrs. Anthony
together at the other end of the saloon. The calculating
horrible impudence of it! His daughter was there; and
I am certain he had seen the Captain putting his finger on
his lips to warn me, and then he had coolly come out!
He passed my imagination, and I assure you! After that

231.

one shiver his presence killed every faculty in me, I
wonder, this horror, this indignation. I felt nothing in
particular just as if he were still the old gentlemen who used
to talk to me familiarly every day on deck. Would you believe
it?

"Mr. Powell challenged my powers of wonder at this internal phenomenon," went on Marlow after a slight pause. "But even if they had not been fully engaged, together with all my powers of attention in following the facts of the case, I would not have been astonished by his statements about himself. Taking into consideration his youth they were by no means incredible, nor at any rate, they were the least incredible part of the whole. They were also the least interesting part. The interest was elsewhere, and there of course all he could do was to look at the surface. The inwardness of what was passing before his eyes was hidden from him, who had looked on, more impenetrably than from me who at a distance of years was listening to his words. What presently happened at this crisis in Flora de Barral's fate was beyond his power of comment, seemed in a sense natural. And his own presence on the scene was so移入背景by
motived that it was left for me to marvel alone at this young man, a completely chance-comer, having brought it about on that night.

232.

Each situation created either by folly or wisdom
has its psychological moment. The behaviour of the Powell
with its mixture of boyish impulses combined with instinctive
prudence, had not created it — I can't say that -- but had
discovered it to the very people involved. What would have
happened if he had made a noise about his discovery? But
But he didn't. His head was full of Mrs Anthony and he
behaved with a discretion beyond his years. Some nice
children often do; and surely it is not from reflection.
They have their own inspirations. The Powell's inspiration
consisted in being "enthusiastic" about Mrs. Anthony.
'Enthusiastic' is really good. And he was amongst them like
a child, sensitive, impressionable, plastic — but unable to
find for himself any sort of comment.

I don't know how much mine may be worth; but I
believe that just then the tension of the false situation
was at its highest. Of all the forms offered to us by
life it is that one which demands a couple to realize it fully,
which is the most imperative. Pairing off is the fate of
mankind. And if two beings thrown together, mutually
attracted, resist the necessity, fail in understanding and
voluntarily stop short of the — the embrace, in the noblest
meaning of the word, then they are committing a sin against
life, the call of which is simple, perhaps sacred! And the
punishment of it is an invasion of complexity, a tormenting,

233.

forcibly tortuous involution of feelings, the deepest form
of suffering from which indeed something significant may
come at last, which may be criminal or heroic, may be
madness or wisdom -- or even a straight if despairing decision.

Powell on taking his eyes off the old gentleman noticed Captain Anthony, swarthy as an African, by the side of Flora whiter than the lilies, take his handkerchief out and wipe off his forehead the sweat of anguish -- like a man who is overcome. "And no wonder," commented Mr. Powell here. Then the Captain said, "Hadn't you better go back to your room." This was to Mrs. Anthony. He tried to smile at her. "Why do you look startled? This night is like any other night"

"Which," Powell again commented to me earnestly, "was a lie.... No wonder he sweated." You see from this the value of Powell's comments. Mrs. Anthony then said: "Why are you sending me away?"

"Why? That you should go to sleep. That you should rest." And Captain Anthony frowned. Then sharply, "You stay here, Mr. Powell. I shall want you presently."

As a matter of fact Powell had not moved.

Flora did not mind his presence. He himself had the feeling of being of no account to those three people. He was looking at Mrs. Anthony as unabashed as the proverbial cat looking at a king. Mrs. Anthony glanced at him. She did not move,

234.

gripped by an inexplicable premonition. She had arrived at the very limit of her endurance as the object of Anthony's magnanimity; she was the prey of an intuitive dread of she did not know what mysterious influence; she felt herself being pushed back into that solitude, that moral loneliness, which had made all her life intolerable. And then, in that close communion established again with Anthony, she felt -- as on that night in the garden -- the force of his personal fascination. The passive quietness with which she looked at him gave her the appearance of a person be - witched -- or, say, ~~mesmerically~~ put to sleep -- beyond any notion of her surroundings.

After telling Mr. Powell not to go away the Captain remained silent. Suddenly Mrs. Anthony pushed back her loose hair with a decisive gesture of her arms and moved still nearer to him. "Here's papa up yet," she said, but she did not look towards Mr. Smith. "Why not? And you? I can't go on liks this, Roderick -- between you two. Don't you?"

Anthony interrupted her as if something had untied his tongue.

"Oh yes. Here's your father. And....Why not. Perhaps it is just as well you came out. Between us two? Is that it? I won't pretend I don't understand. I am not blind. But I can't fight any longer for what I haven't got. I don't know what you imagine has happened. Some-

235

thing has though. Only you needn't be afraid. No shadow
can touch you — because I give up. I can't say we had
much talk about it your father and I but, uh, the long and
the short of it is, that I must learn to live without you —
which I have told you was impossible. I was speaking the
truth. But I have done fighting, or waiting, or hoping. Yes.
You shall go."

At this point Mr. Powell who (he confessed to me)
was listening with uncomprehending awe heard behind
his back a low chuckling sound. It gave him the shudders,
he said, uh, to mention it now; but at the time, except for
another chill down the spine, it had not the power to
destroy his absorption in the scene before his eyes, uh, and
before his ears too, because just then Captain Anthony raised
his voice grimly. Perhaps he too had heard the chuckle
of the old man.

"Your father has found an argument which makes me pause, uh, if it does not convince me. No! I can't answer it. I — I don't want to answer it. I simply surrender. He shall have his way with you — and with me. Only," he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr. Powell as if a pedal had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few days, directly we get together, the very moment we do, I, who

236

have said I could never let you go I shall let you
go."

To the innocent beholder Anthony seemed at this
point to become physically exhausted. My view is that
the utter falseness of his, I may say, aspirations, the
vanity of grasping the empty air, had come to him with
an overwhelming force, leaving him disarmed before
the other's mad and sinister sincerity. As he had said
himself he could not fight for what he did not possess;
he could not face such a thing as this for the sake of
his mere magnanimity. It is the normal *alone* that can
overcome the abnormal. He could not even reproach that
man over there. "I own myself beaten," he said in a
firmer tone. "You are right, I let you off since I must."

Powell, the onlooker, affirms that at these in-
comprehensible words Mrs. Anthony stiffened into the
very image of astonishment, with a *very* frightened stare
and frozen lips. But next minute a cry came out from *her* heart,
"those lips, a cry not very loud but of a quality which
made not only Captain Anthony (he was not looking at
her) not only him but also the more distant (and equally
unprepared) *you*" may *raten their breath*: "But I don't want to be
let off." she cried.

237

She was so still that one asked oneself whether
the cry had come from her. The restless shuffle behind Powell's
back dropped shorty, the intermittent shadowy chuckling snarker
too. Young Powell, turning round, saw that Mr. Smith had
raised his head and looked with his faded eyes, very still,
puckered at the corners, like a man perceiving something
coming at him from a great distance. And Mrs. Anthony's voice
reached Powell's ears, entwining and indignant.

"You can't sit me off like this, Roderick. I won't go away
from you. It won't be long, will it? Then
Powell turned about and discovered that what Mr.
Smith was puckering his eyes at, was his daughter clinging
round Captain Anthony, a sight not in itself improper, but
which had the power to move Powell with a bashfully
profound emotion. It was different from his emotion when
puckering at the revelations of the skylight; but
in this
case too he felt the discomfort, if not the guilt, of an
unseen beholder. Experience was being piled up on his
young shoulders. Mrs. Anthony's hair hung back, as if
a hair of a crowning woman. She looked up, let go and sat down
on a bank near the door.
As if she would break, if the Captain were to withhold his
sustaining arm. But the Captain obviously had no such intention,
standing firm and still, her eyes fixed with a strange look at Mr.
Smith. For a time the two conversed, sobbing of Mr.
Smith's daughter was the only sound to be heard.
The strength of his clasp increased
doubtfully
Flora to his breast could not be questioned even at that distance, and suddenly, as if
awakening to his opportunity, he began to partly support her,

["238", "partly carry her in the direction of her cabin. His head\nwas bent over her solicitously, then recollecting himself,\nwith a glance back full of unwonted fire his voice ringing\nin a note unknown to Mr. Powell, he cried to him, \"Don't\nyou go on deck yet. I want you to stay down here till I\ncome back. There are some instructions I want to give you.\"", "And before the young man could answer ~~had~~ disappeared in the stern cabin, burdened and exulting.", "\"Instructions,\" commented Mr. Powell. \"That was\nall right. Very likely; but they would be such instructions\nas, I thought to myself, no ship's officer perhaps had ever\nbeen given before. It made me feel a little sick to think\nwhat they would be dealing with, probably. But there!\nEverything that happens on board ship on the high seas has\ngot to be dealt with somehow. There are no special people\nto fly to for assistance. And there I was with that old\nman left in my charge. When he noticed me looking at him\nhe started to shuffle again athwart the saloon. He kept\nhis hands rammed in his pockets, he was as stiff-backed as\never, only his head hung down. After a bit he says in his\ngentle soft tone: \"Did you see it?\"", "Powell's head no special words to fit this horror.\n\"Good God! What were you\nto say something, he said - he had to say something. This feeling, Powell, said - he had to say something

239

thinking of, Mr. Smith, to try to ... And then he left off.

He dared not alter the adult world; he stopped to see how his prowled.

"Think! What do you know of thinking. I don't think. There is something in my head that thinks. The thoughts in men, it's like being drunk with liquor or — You can't stop them. A man who thinks will think anything. No! But have you seen it. Have you?"

"I tell you I have! I am certain I was looking at you all the time. You've done something to the drink in that glass."

Then Powell lost his breath somehow. Mr. Smith looked at him curiously, with mistrust. "My good young man, I don't know what you are talking about. I ask you — have you seen? Who would have believed it? Her arms round his neck. Knew! Oh! You did see! I didn't you? It wasn't a demin — was it? Her arms round... But I have never wholly trusted her."

Then I burst out at him, "said Mr. Powell. I told him he was jolly lucky to have fallen upon Captain Anthony. A man in a million. He started again shuffling to and fro. "You too," he said, "mumsumfully, keeping his eyes down. "Oh, Wonderful man? But have you a notion why I am? Listen."

I have been the Great Mr. de Barral. So they printed it, and I have been doing time. And now I am brought low." His voice died down to all breath. "Brought low!"

240

He took his hands out of his pocket, dragged the cap down on his head and stuck them back into his pockets exactly as he was preparing himself to go out into a great wind. "But not so low as to put up with this disgrace, to see her in such a fast in this fellow's clutches, without doing something. She wouldn't listen to me. Frightened? Silly? I had to think of some way to get her out of this. Did you think she cared for him? No... Would anybody have thought so? No... She was going for my sake, but I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't understanding it. I hadn't been an old man I would have flown at his throat months ago, even time he looked at her. My girl. Ough! My man, but this is a very weak plot, their conspiracy! And all the time he was lying to me. It was a plot, a conspiracy! She was leading me on, till she has fairly put my head under the heel of that jailer, of that scoundrel, of her husband... Treachery! I was bringing my low,ower self in to it. You never thought that's what it means. It doesn't! Under his heel!" He paused in his restless shuffle and again seized his cap with both hands, dragged it furiously along the stage.

241

Powell in those days had lost himself in listening to Mr. Powell's ravings and looking at his own face when, suddenly, quick as lightning he spun round, snatched up the Captain's glass and with a stifled, hurried "Here's luck," tossed the liquor down his throat.

"I know the meaning of the word 'Consternation'," went on Mr. Powell. "That was exactly my state of mind."

I thought to myself directly: There's nothing in that drink.

Powell quelled down the room. He stood before the unharmed man at once, in a sort of all-consuming listening attitude, his head churning, his thin lips. Suddenly he blinked slowly, grabbed the shoulder and collapsed, subduing him simply.

Powell's glass down, he stood before the unharmed, all at once in a sort of all-consuming listening attitude, his head churning, chewing

As though he had gone soft all over, as a piece of silk stuff collapses. Powell seized his arm instinctively and checked his fall; but as soon as he was fairly on the floor he jerked himself free and backed away. Almost as quick he rushed forward again and tried to lift him. But directly

Mr. Powell raised his shoulders knew that he was dead! Dead!

He lowered him down gently. He reached over him without fear or any other feeling, reached out and let him be. And then he made another start, and if he had not been far away, as it were. And then he made another start, and if he had not been far away, as it were. And then he

242

staggered to her cabin-door, and, as it was, his call for
"Captain Anthony" burst out of him much too loud; but he
made a great effort to control himself and his action
as he said, "I am waiting for my orders, sir," he said outside
that door distinctly, in a steady,匀称的声调。

It was very still in there; still as death. Then
he heard a shuffle of feet and the Captain's voice "All right.
Coming," he leaned against the bulkhead as he saw a
drunken man sometimes propped up against a wall, half
doubled up. In that attitude the Captain found him when he
came out, pulling the door to after him quickly. At once
Anthony let his eyes run all over the cabin. Powell looked aghast;
he clutched his forearm and led him round the end of the table
Tremblingly, he began to justify himself. "I couldn't
stop him," he whispered. "He was too quick for me. He drank
it up and down." But the Captain was not listening. He was
looking down at Mr. Smith, thinking perhaps that it was a mere
chance his own body was not lying there. They did not want to
speak. They made signs to each other with their eyes. The Captain
grasped the shoulder as if in a vice and glanced at Mrs. Anthony's
cabin door, and it was enough. He knew that he understood
him. Rather! Silence! Silence for ever about this. Their
very glances became stealthy. He looked from behind to the door
of that dead man's stateroom. He nodded and let them go; and then

243

Powell crept over, hooked the door open and crept back with fearful glances towards the cabin. They stooped over the body and lifted up Captain Anthony's cabin. The shoulders.

Mr. Powell shuddered. "I'll never forget that interminable journey across the saloon, step by step, without our breath. For part of it the drawn half of the curtain concealed us from view had Mrs. Anthony opened her door; but I didn't draw the body down on the swinging cot. The reflection of the saloon light left most of the cabin in the shadow. His rigid, extended body looked shadowy too, shadowy and alive. You know he always carried himself as stiff as a poker. We stood by the cot as though waiting for him to make a sign that he wanted to be left alone. The Captain threw his arm over my shoulder and said in my very ear: "The steward'll find him in the morning."

"I made no answer. It was for him to say. It was perhaps the best way. It's no use talking about my thoughts. They were not concerned with myself, nor yet with that old man who terrified me more now than when he was alive. Him whom I pitied was the Captain. He whispered: "I am certain of you, Mr. Powell. You had better go on deck. As to me...." and I saw him raise his hands to his head as if distracted. But his last words before we stole out of that cabin stick in my mind with the very tone of his mutter - to himself - not to me.

244

"No! No! I am not going to stumble now over that
corpse."

"This is what our Mr. Powell had to tell me on the
I think, third occasion of our meeting, said Marlow,
changing his tone. I was glad to learn that Flora de Barral
had been saved from that sinister shadow at least falling
upon her path."

We sat silent, then, my mind running on the end of
de Barral, on the irresistible pressure of imaginary griefs
crushing conscience, scruples, prudence, under their ever-
expanding volume, on the sombre and venomous irony in the
obsession which had mastered that old man.

"Well," I said.

"The steward found him," Mr. Powell roused himself.
"He went in there with a cup of tea at five and of course
dropped it. I was on watch again. He reeled up to me on
deck pale as death. I had been expecting it; I could
hardly speak. "Go and tell the Captain quietly," I said. So
he ran off muttering "My God! My God!", And I'm hanged if
he didn't get hysterical while trying to tell the Captain and
start screaming in the saloon, "Fully dressed! Dead! Fully

245

dressed!" Mrs. Anthony ran out of course but she didn't
get hysterical. Franklin who was there too, told me that she
hid her face on the Captain's breast and then he went out and
left them there. It was days before Mrs. Anthony was seen
on deck. The first time I spoke to her she gave me her
hand and said, "My poor father was quite fond of you, Mr.
Powell." She started wiping her eyes and I fled to the
other side of the deck. One would like to forget all this
had ever come near her."

But clearly he could not because after lighting
his pipe he began musing aloud. "Very strong stuff it must
have been. I wonder where he got it. It could hardly be at
a common chemist. Well, he had it from somewhere - a mere
pinch it must have been, no more."

"I have my theory," observed Marlow, "which to a
certain extent does away with the added horror of a coldly
premeditated crime. Chance had stepped in there too. It was
not Mr. Smith who obtained the poison. It was the great
de. Barral. And it was not meant for the obscure, magnanimous
conqueror of Flora de Barral; it was meant for the notorious
financier whose enterprises had nothing to do with magnanimity.
He had his physician in his days of greatness. I even seem
to remember that the man was called at the trial on some small
point or other. I can imagine that de Barral went to him when

246

he saw, as he could hardly help seeing, the possibility of a
"triumph of envious rivals" - a heavy sentence.

I doubt if for love or even for money, but I think,
possibly, from pity that man provided him with what Mr. Powell
called "strong stuff". From what Powell saw of the very act I
am fairly certain it must have been contained in a capsule and
that he had it about him on the last day of his trial, perhaps
secured by a stitch in his waistcoat pocket. He didn't use
it. Why? Did he think of his child at the last moment? Was
it want of courage? We can't tell. But he found it in his
clothes when he came out of jail. It had escaped investigation
if there was any. Chance had armed him. And chance alone,
the chance of Mr. Powell's life forced him to turn the
abominable weapon against himself.

I imparted my theory to Mr. Powell who accepted
it at once as, in a sense, favourable to the father of
Mrs. Anthony. Then he waved his hand. "Don't let us think
of it."

I acquiesced and very soon he observed dreamily.

"I was with Captain and Mrs. Anthony sailing all over
the world for near on six years. Almost as long as Franklin."

"Oh, yes! What about Franklin?" I asked.

Powell smiled. "He left the Ferndale a year or so
afterwards and I took his place. Captain Anthony recommended
him for a command. You don't think Captain Anthony would chuck

247

a man aside like an old glove. But of course Mrs. Anthony
did not like him very much. I don't think she ever let out
a whisper against him but Captain Anthony could read her
thoughts."

And again Powell seemed to lose himself in the past.
I asked, for suddenly, the vision of the Fynes passed through
my mind.

"Any children?"

Powell gave a start. "No! No! Never any children,"
and again subsided, puffing at his short briar pipe.

"Where are they now?" I inquired next as if anxious
to ascertain that all Fyne's fears had been misplaced and vain
as our fears often are; that there were no undesirable cousins
for his dear girls, no danger of intrusion on their spotless
home. Powell looked round at me slowly, his pipe smouldering
in his hand.

"Don't you know?" he uttered in a deep voice.

"Know what?"

"That the Ferndale was lost, this half a dozen
years or more. Sunk. Collision. And Captain Anthony went
down with her."

"You don't say so!" I cried quite affected as if I
had known Captain Anthony personally. "Was — was Mrs. Anthony
lost too?"

248

"You might as well ask if I was lost," Mr. Powell rejoined so testily as to surprise me. "You see me here, don't you."

He was quite huffy, but noticing my wondering stare he smoothed his ruffled plumes. And in a musing tone,

"Yes. Good men go out as if there was no use for them in the world. It seems as if there were things that, as the Turks say, are written. Or else fate has a try and sometimes misses its mark. You remember that close shave we had of being run down at night, I told you of, my first voyage with them. This go, it was just at dawn. A flat calm and a fog thick enough to slice with a knife. Only there were no explosives on board. I was on deck and I remember the cursed, murderous thing looming up alongside and Captain Anthony, we were both on deck, calling out, 'Good God! What's this! Shout for all hands, Powell, to save themselves. There's no dynamite on board now. I am going to get the wife, shout!'... I yelled, all the watch on deck yelled... Crash!"

Mr. Powell gasped at the recollection. "It was a Belgian Blue Star liner, the 'Westland,'" he went on, "commanded by one of those stop-for-nothing skippers. Flaherty was his name and I hope he will die without absolution. She cut half through the old Ferndale and after the blow there was a dead man on board. Next I heard the Captain

249.

back on deck shouting, "Set your engines slow ahead," and a howl of "Yes, yes," answering him from her forecastle; and then a whole crowd of people up there began making a row in the fog. They were throwing ropes down to us in dozens, I must say. I and the Captain fastened one of them under Mrs. Anthony's arm. I remember she had a sort of dim smile on her face."

"Haul up carefully," I shouted, to the people on the steamer's deck. "You've got a woman on that line!"

The Captain saw her landed up there safe. And then we made a rush round our deck to see if there were any one left behind.

As we ran back he says: "Here she's gone at last, Powell; the dear old thing! Run down at sea."

"Indeed she is," I said. "But it might have been worse. I think up from this rope, sir, for God's sake! I will steady it for you!"

"What are you thinking about," he says angrily. "It isn't right. Turn a lip with you."

These were the last words he ever spoke on earth I suppose. I knew he meant to be last to leave his ship, so I swarmed up as quick as I could, and those damned lunatics pulled me up there grab at me from above, drag me along aft through the fog and the riot of water and waves on board?" And then I heard some one say, "Have you got them all on board?" And then I went to see if anybody was left behind.

Somebody hails from the bridge, "Have you got them all on board?" And then I heard some one say, "All saved! All saved! And then a dozen times as fast as they all together."

250.

that accursed Irishman on the bridge, with me yelling, "No: No!"
till I thought my head would burst, rings the engines astern.
He rings the engines astern - I fighting like mad to make
myself heard! The end of course..."

I saw tears, a shower of them fall down Mr. Powell's
face. His voice broke.

"The Ferndale went down like a stone and Captain
Anthony went down with her, the finest man's soul that ever left a
sailor's body. I raved like a maniac, like a devil, with a lot
of fools crowding round me and asking, "Aren't you the
Captain?"

"I wasn't fit to tie the shoe-strings of the man you
have drowned," I screamed at them... Well! Well! I could see
myself that it was no good lowering a boat. You couldn't have
seen her alongside. No use. And only think, Little Marlow, it
was I who had to go and tell them. They had taken her down below
somewhere, first class saloon. I had to go and tell her!
That Flaherty, God forgive him, comes to me as white as a
sheet, "I think you are the proper person," God
forgive him. I wished to die a hundred times, but instead
down below A lot of kind ladies passengers chattering
excitedly around Mrs. Anthony - a real parrot house. The
doctor went before me. He whispers right and left and
then there falls a sudden hush. Yes, I wished myself dead.
But Mrs. Anthony was a brick."

251

Here Mr. Powell fairly burst into tears. "No one
could help loving Captain Anthony. I leave you to imagine
what he was to her. Yet before the week was out it was she
who was helping me to pull myself together."

"Is Mrs. Anthony in England now?" I asked after a
while.

He wiped his eyes without any false shame. "Oh, yes."
He began to look for matches, and while diving for the box
under the table added: "And not very far from here either.
That little village up there - you know."

"No! Really: Oh I see!"

Mr. Powell smoked austerely, very detached. But I
could not let him off like this. The sly beggar. So this was
the secret of his passion for sailing about the river, the
reason of his fondness for that creek.

"And I suppose," I said, "that you are still as
'enthusiastic' as ever. Eh? If I were you I would just
mention my enthusiasm to Mrs. Anthony. Why not?"

He caught his falling pipe neatly. But if, what the
French call 'effarement' was ever expressed on a human
countenance it was on this occasion, testifying to his modesty,
his sensibility and his innocence. He looked afraid of
somebody overhearing my audacious - almost sacrilegious - hint,
as if there had not been a mile and a half of lonely marshland
and dykes between us and the nearest human habitation. And then

252

perhaps he remembered the soothing fact for he allowed a
gleam to light up his eyes, like the reflection of some inward
fire tended in the sanctuary of his heart by a devotion as pure
as that of any vestal.

It flashed and went out. He smiled a bashful smile,
sighed:

"Pah! Foolishness. You ought to know better," he
said, more sad than annoyed. "But I forgot that you never
knew Captain Anthony," he added indulgently.

I reminded him that I knew Mrs. Anthony; even before
he - an old friend now - had ever set eyes on her. And as he
whispered that Mrs. Anthony had heard of our meetings I wondered
whether she would care to see me. Mr. Powell volunteered no
opinion then; but next time we lay in the creek he said,
"She will be very pleased. You had better go up today."

The afternoon was well advanced before I approached
the cottage. The amenity of a fine day in its decline surrounded
by a beneficent, a calming influence; I felt it in the
silence of the shady lane, in the pure air, in the blue sky.
It is difficult to retain the memory of the conflicts,
miseries, temptations and crimes of men's self-conscious
existence when it is alone with the charming serenity of the im-
passive nature. Breathing the dreamless peace around the
picturesque cottage I was approaching, it seemed to me that it

253

must reign everywhere, over all the globe of water and land and
in the hearts of all the dwellers on this earth.

Flora came down to the garden gate to meet me, no
longer the perversely tempting, sorrowful, wisp of white mist
drifting in the complicated bad dream of existence. Neither
did she look like a forsaken elf. I stammered out stupidly,
"Again in the country Miss.... Mrs....." She was very good,
returned the pressure of my hand, but we were slightly
embarrassed. Then we laughed a little. Then we became grave.

I am soLOVest the day-breaks. You know how thin, equivocal,
is the dawn. But she was now her true self, she was like
a fine tranquil afternoon - and not so very far advanced either.
A woman of thirty with a dazzling complexion
and a little colour, a lot of hair, a fine chin, and only the
eyes of the Flora of the old days, absolutely unchanged.

In the room into which she led me we found a Miss
Somebody - I didn't catch the name, - an unobtrusive, even an
indistinct, middleaged person in black. A companion. All very
correct. She came and went and even sat down at times
in the room, but a little apart, until some time later. By the
decade in which I was then and now, and at one time she had brought
in a lighted lamp I had heard all the details which I have
related to you in their proper place and in my own way. Between
me and her who was once Flora de Barral the conversation was
not likely to keep strictly to the weather.

254.

The lamp had a rosy shade; and its glow wreathed her
in perpetual blushes, made her appear wonderfully young as she
sat before me in a deep, high-backed armchair. I asked:

"Tell me what is it you said in that famous letter
which so upset Mrs. Fyne, and caused little Fyne to interfere
in this offensive manner?"

"It was simply crude," she said earnestly. "I was
feeling reckless and I wrote recklessly. I knew she would dis-
approve and I wrote foolishly. It was the echo of her own
stupid talk. I said that I did not love her brother but that
I had no scruples whatever in marrying him."

She paused, hesitating, then with a shy half-laugh.

"I really believed I was selling myself, Mr. Marlow.
And I was proud of it. What I suffered afterwards I can't tell
you, because I only discovered my love for my poor Roderick
through rage and humiliation. I suspected him of despising me;
but I could not put it to the test because of my father. Oh!
I would not have been too proud. But I had to spare poor papa's
feelings. Roderick was perfect, but I felt as though I were on
the rack and not allowed even to cry out. Papa's prejudice
against Roderick was my greatest grief. It was distracting.
It frightened me. Oh! I have been miserable! That night when
my poor father died suddenly I am certain they had some sort of
discussion, about me. But I did not want to hold out any longer
against my own heart!"

255.

She stopped short, then impulsively:

"Truth will out, Mr. Marlow."

"Yes," I said.

She went on musingly.

"Sorrow and happiness were mingled at first like
darkness and light. For months I lived in a dusk of unhappiness,
was quiet. It was warm.... "

Again she paused, then going back in her thoughts.
"No! There was no harm in that letter. It was simply foolish.
What did I know then? Nothing. But Mrs. Fyne ought to have
known better. She wrote a letter to her brother, a little
later. Years afterwards Roderick allowed me to glance at it.
I found this sentence: 'For years I tried to make a friend
of that girl; but I warn you once more that she has the nature
of a heartless adventuress....' Adventuress!" repeated Flora
slowly. "So be it. I have had a fine adventure."

"It was fine, then," I said admiringly.

"The finest in the world! Only think! I loved and
I was loved, untroubled, at peace, without remorse, without
fear. All the world, all life were transformed for me. And how
much I have seen! How good people were to me! Roderick was
so much liked everywhere. Yes, I have known kindness and safety.
The most familiar things appeared lighted up with a new light,
clothed with a loveliness I had never seen before. And the

256.

itself!...

You have lived on it. But do you know how beautiful it is, how strong, how charming, how mighty...."

I listened amazed and touched. She was silent only a little while.

"It was too good to last. But nothing can rob me of it now. Don't think that I repine. I am not even sad. Yes, I have been happy. But I remember also the time when I was unhappy, yet beyond endurance, you remember that. And later on, too. There was a time on board the *Ferndale* when the only moments of relief I had were when I made Mr. Powell talk to me a little on the poop. You like him? Don't you?"

"Excellent fellow," I said. "You see him often?"

"Of course. I hardly know another soul in the world. I am alone. And he has plenty of time on his hands. His aunt died a few years ago. He's doing nothing, I believe."

"He is fond of the sea," I remarked. "He loves it."

"He seems to have given it up," she murmured.

"I wonder why?"

She remained silent. "Perhaps it is because he loves something else better," I went on. "Come Mrs. Anthony, don't let me carry away from here the idea that you are a selfish person, hugging the memory of your past happiness, like a rich man his treasure, forgetting the poor at the gate."

And I rose, for it was getting late. She got up and went out with me into the fragrant darkness.

257.

of the garden. She detained my hand for a moment and then in
the very voice of the Flora of old days, with the exact inton-
ation, showing the old mistrust, the old doubt of herself, the
old scar of the blow received in childhood, pathetic and funny,
she said: "Do you think it possible that he should care for me?"

"Just ask him yourself. You are brave."

"Oh, I am brave enough," she said with a sigh.

"Then do, For if you don't you will be wronging that
patient man cruelly."

I departed leaving her dumb. Next day, seeing Powell
making preparations to go ashore, I asked him to give my regards
to Mrs. Anthony. He said, "Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Powell," I said. "We got to know each other
by chance?"

"Oh, quite," he admitted, adjusting his hat.

"And so am I," the science of life said, seizing every chance
that presents itself," I pursued. "Do you believe that?"

"Gospel truth," he declared innocently.

"Well, don't forget it."

"Oh, I! I don't expect now anything to present itself,"
he said, jumping ashore.

He didn't turn up at high water. I set my sail and
just as I had cast off from the bank, round the black barn, in
the dusk, two figures appeared and stood silent, indistinct.

258.

"Is that you, Powell?" I hailed.

"And Mrs. Anthony," his voice came impressively through the silence of the great marsh. "I am not sailing to-night. I have to see Mrs Anthony home!"

"Then I must go alone," I cried.

Flora's voice wished me "bon voyage" but tremulous tone, in a most friendly manner,{]}}

"You shall hear from me before long," shouted Powell, suddenly, just as my boat had cleared the mouth of the creek.

"This was yesterday," added Marlow, lolling in the armchair lazily. "I haven't heard yet; but I expect to hear any moment in thissarcastic manner? I am not afraid of going to Church with a friend. Hang it all, for all my belief in Chance I am not exactly a pagan."

THE END.