ready enough to go off wandering on the face of the earth—­and that was price enough to pay for an Abel of that sort.  Anyhow, he wouldn’t listen to me.  ’This thing must take its course.  I represent the law here.’  He was shaking like a leaf.  ‘So you won’t?’ ‘No!’ ’Then I hope you will be able to sleep on that,’ I said, and turned my back on him.  ‘I wonder that you can,’ cries he, and locks the door.

“Well, after that, I couldn’t.  Not very well.  That was three weeks ago.  We have had a slow passage through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata for ten days.  When we anchored here they thought, I suppose, it was all right.  The nearest land (and that’s five miles) is the ship’s destination; the consul would soon set about catching me; and there would have been no object in bolting to these islets there.  I don’t suppose there’s a drop of water on them.  I don’t know how it was, but to-night that steward, after bringing me my supper, went out to let me eat it, and left the door unlocked.  And I ate it—­all there was, too.  After I had finished I strolled out on the quarterdeck.  I don’t know that I meant to do anything.  A breath of fresh air was all I wanted, I believe.  Then a sudden temptation came over me.  I kicked off my slippers and was in the water before I had made up my mind fairly.  Somebody heard the splash and they raised an awful hullabaloo.  ’He’s gone!  Lower the boats!  He’s committed suicide!  No, he’s swimming.’  Certainly I was swimming.  It’s not so easy for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by drowning.  I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the ship’s side.  I heard them pulling about in the dark, hailing, and so on, but after a bit they gave up.  Everything quieted down and the anchorage became as still as death.  I sat down on a stone and began to think.  I felt certain they would start searching for me at daylight.  There was no place to hide on those stony things—­and if there had been, what would have been the good?  But now I was clear of that ship, I was not going back.  So after a while I took off all my clothes, tied them up in a bundle with a stone inside, and dropped them in the deep water on the outer side of that islet.  That was suicide enough for me.  Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself.  I meant to swim till I sank—­but that’s not the same thing.  I struck out for another of these little islands, and it was from that one that I first saw your riding-light.  Something to swim for.  I went on easily, and on the way I came upon a flat rock a foot or two above water.  In the daytime, I dare say, you might make it out with a glass from your poop.  I scrambled up on it and rested myself for a bit.  Then I made another start.  That last spell must have been over a mile.”

His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all the time he stared straight out through the port-hole, in which there was not even a star to be seen.  I had not interrupted him.  There was something that made comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in himself; a sort of feeling, a quality, which I can’t find a name for.  And when he ceased, all I found was a futile whisper:  “So you swam for our light?”