It was a novel life for most who were on board, filled with adventure and spectacular surprises.  The Commodore’s hospitality was boundless; the appetites of his guests insatiable.  But Clitheroe had seen all this from quite another point of view; he had been a native among the natives; admitted into brotherhood with the tribe, he had lived the life they lead until it had become as natural to him as if he had been born to it.  Their thoughts were his thoughts, their tongue, his tongue.  He was thinking of this as he sat by the companion-way, in the silence, unobserved.

Three Bells! He rose and going to the open transom, looked down into the cabin.  The long dinner table had been relieved of dessert-dishes, but the after-dinner bottles were there in profusion, and cigar-boxes and cigarettes within convenient reach; it was an odd scene; a picture of confusion in a dead calm.  The lights were burning low and there was no sound save the hoarse breathing of some of the revelers who had subsided into uncomfortable positions and were too heavy with sleep to seek easier ones.  Clitheroe saw at the head of the table the Commodore, stretched back in his easy chair; he was fast asleep; there was no doubt about that.  His guests one and all were dozing.  The drowsy stupor that follows a debauch pervaded the whole company.  I venture the assurance that not one person present could have been aroused in season to save himself or herself had the ship at that moment struck a reef, and foundered.

There they were, dimly outlined under the cabin-lamps, the companions with whom for a season Clitheroe had been more or less intimately associated in the Misty City; the Bohemians who had found it an easy and pleasant thing to flock upon the deck of the “Waring,” one foggy afternoon, and set sail on a summer cruise.  The Commodore invited them for his entertainment, and because he was a mighty good fellow and could afford to.  They went for a change of air and scene, in search of adventure—­and moreover they were sure of luxurious hospitality for at least six months.  Clitheroe joined the company, not only for the reason that there seemed nothing else for him to do, but he was glad of the opportunity of revisiting a quarter of the globe so very dear to him.  This voyage, he thought, might re-awaken his interest in life; at any rate, he could lose nothing by taking it, and that settled the question for him.

The singers, the dancers, the painters and poets made life very lively in that summer sea; it was a case of sweet idleness with wine, women and wits, and all the world before them where to choose.  It must be confessed that Clitheroe had enjoyed himself in the society of these old comrades—­you would recognize most of them were he to name them; but tonight, or rather this early morning he had begun to moralize, as he peered down the transom upon the half-shadowy forms of those feasters who had fallen by the way.  He was asking himself if it paid—­this high-pressure