Well, vanity, vanity.  Nearer still I drew:  it was broad morning, going on toward noon:  I was half a mile away, I was fifty yards.  But on board the Boreal, though now they must have heard me, seen me, I observed no movement of welcome, but all, all was still as death that still Arctic morning, my God.  Only, the ragged sail flapped a little, and—­one on each side—­two ice-floes sluggishly bombarded the bows, with hollow sounds.

I was certain now that Sallitt it was who looked across the ice:  but when the ship swung a little round, I noticed that the direction of his gaze was carried with her movement, he no longer looking my way.

‘Why, Sallitt!’ I shouted reproachfully:  ‘why, Sallitt, man...!’ I whined.

But even as I shouted and whined, a perfect wild certainty was in my heart:  for an aroma like peach, my God, had been suddenly wafted from the ship upon me, and I must have very well known then that that watchful outlook of Sallitt saw nothing, and on the Boreal were dead men all; indeed, very soon I saw one of his eyes looking like a glass eye which has slid askew, and glares distraught.  And now again my wretched body failed, and my head dropped forward, where I sat, upon the kayak-deck.

* * * * *

Well, after a long time, I lifted myself to look again at that forlorn and wandering craft.  There she lay, quiet, tragic, as it were culpable of the dark secret she bore; and Sallitt, who had been such good friends with me, would not cease his stare.  I knew quite well why he was there:  he had leant over to vomit, and had leant ever since, his forearms pressed on the bulwark-beam, his left knee against the boards, and his left shoulder propped on the cathead.  When I came quite near, I saw that with every bump of the two floes against the bows, his face shook in response, and nodded a little; strange to say, he had no covering on his head, and I noted the play of the faint breezes in his uncut hair.  After a time I would approach no more, for I was afraid; I did not dare, the silence of the ship seemed so sacred and awful; and till late afternoon I sat there, watching the black and massive hull.  Above her water-line emerged all round a half-floating fringe of fresh-green sea-weed, proving old neglect; an abortive attempt had apparently been made to lower, or take in, the larch-wood pram, for there she hung by a jammed davit-rope, stern up, bow in the water; the only two arms of the windmill moved this way and that, through some three degrees, with an andante creaking sing-song; some washed clothes, tied on the bow-sprit rigging to dry, were still there; the iron casing all round the bluff bows was red and rough with rust; at several points the rigging was in considerable tangle; occasionally the boom moved a little with a tortured skirling cadence; and the sail, rotten, I presume, from exposure—­for she had certainly encountered no bad weather—­gave out anon a heavy languid flap at a rent down the middle.  Besides Sallitt, looking out there where he had jammed himself, I saw no one.