Why had not the other two masters received the same nudge from Providence before it was too late?  That is what the unfortunate, who cannot genuinely offer solemn thanks like the lucky, will never know, though they continually ask.  It is the darkest and most unedifying part of the mystery.  Moreover, that side of the question, as a war has helped us to remember, never troubles the lucky ones.  Yet I wish to add that later, my friend, when in waters not well known, in charge of a ship on her maiden voyage—­for he always got the last and best ship from his owners, they having recognized that his stars were well-assorted—­was warned that to attempt a certain passage, in some peculiar circumstances, was what a wise man would not lightly undertake.  But my friend was young, daring, clever, and fortunate.  That morning his cap was not on the floor.  At night his valuable ship with her exceptionally valuable cargo was fast for ever on a coral reef.

What did that prove?  Apart from the fact that if the young reject the experience of their elders they may regret it, just as they may regret if they do pay heed to it, his later misfortune proves nothing; except, perhaps, that the last thing on which a man should rely, unless he must, is the supposed favour of the gods of whom he knows nothing but, say, a cap unreasonably on the floor; yet gods, nevertheless, whose existence even the wise and dubious cannot flatly deny.

It may have been for a reason of such a sort that I did not lend my book to my young sailor friend who wished to borrow it.  I should never have had it back.  Men go to sea, and forget us.  Our world has narrowed and has shut out Vanderdecken for ever.  But now that everything private and personal about us which is below the notice even of the Freudian professor is pigeon-holed by officials at the Town Hall, I enjoy reading the abundant evidence for the Extra Hand, that one of the ship’s company who cannot be counted in the watch, but is felt to be there.  And now that every Pacific dot is a concession to some registered syndicate of money-makers, the Isle-of-No-Land-At-All, which some lucky mariners profess to have sighted, is our last chance of refuge.  We cannot let even the thought of it go.

VIII.  The Illusion

When I came to the house in Malabar Street to which John Williams, master mariner, had retired from the sea, his wife was at her front gate.  It was evening, and from the distant River a steamer called.  Mrs. Williams did not see me, for her grey head was turned away.  She was watching, a little down the street, an officer of the Merchant Service, with his cap set like a challenge, for he was very young, and a demure girl with a market-basket who was with him.  They were standing in amused perplexity before their house door.  It was a house that had been empty since the foundering of the Drummond Castle.  The sailor was searching his pockets for the door-key, and the girl was laughing at his pretended lively nervousness in not finding it.  Mrs. Williams had not heard me stop at her elbow, and continued to watch the comedy.  She had no children, and she loved young people.