He very kindly offered me too, if I was indeed bent on seeking the sea, an old boat, still seaworthy, that lay in a creek in the river near by, from which he was wont to fish.  As for Rosinante, he supposed a rest would be by no means unwelcome to so faithful a friend.  He himself rode little, being indolent, and a happier host than guest; and when I returned here, she should be stuffed with dainties awaiting me.

To this I cordially and gratefully agreed; and also even more cordially to remain with him the next day; and the next night after that to take my watery departure.

So it was.  And a courteous, versatile, and vivacious companion I found him.  Rare tales he told me, too, of better days than these, and rarest of his own never-more-returning youth.  He loved his childhood, talked on of it with an artless zeal, his eyes a nest of singing-birds.  How contrite he was for spirit lost, and daring withheld, and hope discomfited!  How simple and urbane concerning his present lowly demands on life, on love, and on futurity!  All this, too, with such packed winks and mirth and mourning, that I truly said good-night for the second time to him with a rather melancholy warmth, since to-morrow ... who can face unmoved that viewless sphinx?  Moreover, the sea is wide, has fishes in plenty, but never too many coraled grottoes once poor mariners.

XV

    ’Tis now full tide ’tween night and day.

    —­JOHN WEBSTER.

On the stroke of two next morning the doctor conducted me down to the creek in the river-bank where he kept his boat.  There was little light but of the stars in the sky; nothing stirring.  She floated dim and monstrous on the softly-running water, a navy in germ, and could have sat without danger thirty men like me.  We stood on the bank, side by side, eyeing her vacancy.  And (I can answer for myself) night-thoughts rose up in us at sight of her.  Was it indeed only wind in the reeds that sighed around us? only the restless water insistently whispering and calling? only of darkness were these forbidding shadows?

I looked up sharply at the doctor from such pensive embroidery, and found him as far away as I. He nodded and smiled, and we shook hands on the bank in the thick mist.

“There’s biscuits and a little meat, wine, and fruit,” he said in an undertone.  “God be with you, sir!  I sadly mistrust the future. ...  ’Tis ever my way, at parting.”

We said good-bye again, to the dream-cry of some little fluttering creature of the rushes.  And well before dawn I was floating midstream, my friend a memory, Rosinante in clover, and my travels, so far as this brief narrative will tell, nearly ended.

I saw nothing but a few long-haired, grazing cattle on my voyage, that eyed me but cursorily.  I passed unmolested among the waterfowl, between the never-silent rushes, beneath a sky refreshed and sweetened with storm.  The boat was enormously heavy and made slow progress.  When too the tide began to flow I must needs push close in to the bank and await the ebb.  But towards evening of the third day I began to approach the sea.