Now I had what I wanted—­the saving mark for my eyes.  But I hardly thought of my other self, now gone from the ship, to be hidden forever from all friendly faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, with no brand of the curse on his sane forehead to stay a slaying hand . . . too proud to explain.

And I watched the hat—­the expression of my sudden pity for his mere flesh.  It had been meant to save his homeless head from the dangers of the sun.  And now—­behold—­it was saving the ship, by serving me for a mark to help out the ignorance of my strangeness.  Ha!  It was drifting forward, warning me just in time that the ship had gathered sternway.

“Shift the helm,” I said in a low voice to the seaman standing still like a statue.

The man’s eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light as he jumped round to the other side and spun round the wheel.

I walked to the break of the poop.  On the overshadowed deck all hands stood by the forebraces waiting for my order.  The stars ahead seemed to be gliding from right to left.  And all was so still in the world that I heard the quiet remark “She’s round,” passed in a tone of intense relief between two seamen.

“Let go and haul.”

The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst cheery cries.  And now the frightful whisker’s made themselves heard giving various orders.  Already the ship was drawing ahead.  And I was alone with her.  Nothing! no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion of a seaman with his first command.

Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, on the very edge of a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway of Erebus—­yes, I was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he were my second self, had lowered himself into the water to take his punishment:  a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny.

FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES

CHAPTER I

One day—­and that day was many years ago now—­I received a long, chatty letter from one of my old chums and fellow-wanderers in Eastern waters.  He was still out there, but settled down, and middle-aged; I imagined him—­grown portly in figure and domestic in his habits; in short, overtaken by the fate common to all except to those who, being specially beloved by the gods, get knocked on the head early.  The letter was of the reminiscent “do you remember” kind—­a wistful letter of backward glances.  And, amongst other things, “surely you remember old Nelson,” he wrote.