“Ah-h!” She leaned closer.

“It was a gale the day we put out.  We had to get out—­in Charleston Harbor it was—­and they were hot after us—­gale or no gale, Captain Blaise put out.  I’m trying to imagine what she would think when she heard.

  “’And now no spray is in my eyes,
    No hand is waved to me—­
  But all the gales of time shall blow
    Ere he comes back from sea!’”

“And she a bride!  Oh-h, the poor girl!” She had leaned over my shoulder to read it for herself, and her breath was on my cheek.

“That is why, if I had—­a wife, I should dread the sea.”

“And that is why a woman—­But how long have you been writing poetry?”

“Poetry?  Or rhyme?  Never before the day I saw you.”

“But when did such ideas before take hold of you?”

“The other night I was lying here looking up, and after a time the moon shone through onto my cot, and you crossed its path—­you had given me my night cup and I had pretended to be asleep; and I thought of you looking out on the moonlit sea and I got to wondering what you were thinking of.  And I remembered a thousand such moonlit nights when you were not there.  And I thought what a difference it would have made had you been there, and so when I say

  “’The Western Ocean smiled that night—­Sweetheart,
  ‘twas a dream of thee!’

“you must not smile.  I meant it; for if the ocean smiles and whispers and makes men dream of—­”

“Oh-h!” her head had settled and now her cheek was against mine.  “Go on,” she said softly.

“It made me dream of her that was never more than a dream-woman until I saw you.  No longer a dream—­not after you stepped out onto the veranda of the Governor’s house that night in Momba.  I knew it again when, looking out from the shrubbery in the garden, you looked at me and said, ‘And who is this?’ And I knew it when with you in the long-boat, when I wanted to reach out and take your hand—­”

“And why didn’t you?  I knew you were weak from your wound, and it would have been a charity in me to cheer you up.”

“Divine charity—­but I was not weak—­not from any wound.  I had not the courage.  A sailor may shape his course by a star, but that does not mean that he ever thinks of reaching up and trying to grasp it.”

“And you’ve heard the sea whisper, too, Guy?”

“Many a time.  In the night mostly—­in the mid-watch, when it’s quietest.  I’ve leant over the rail and heard it whisper up to me.  People laugh at that, but they know nothing of the sea.  And the day, or the night, comes to some men, when she whispers up to him and beckons with her wide arms and on her deep bosom offers to pillow him, and weary of the wrong-doing, mostly it’s wrong-doing, or despair, when men hear it—­weary, weary to death, they are glad to—­”

“No, no—­no, Guy—­you must never go like that!”

“But when a man’s alone?”