It was all one to us who owned the ship.  He had to employ white men in the shipping part of his business, and many of those he so employed had never set eyes on him from the first to the last day.  I myself saw him but once, quite accidentally on a wharf—­an old, dark little man blind in one eye, in a snowy robe and yellow slippers.  He was having his hand severely kissed by a crowd of Malay pilgrims to whom he had done some favour, in the way of food and money.  His alms-giving, I have heard, was most extensive, covering almost the whole Archipelago.  For isn’t it said that “The charitable man is the friend of Allah”?

Excellent (and picturesque) Arab owner, about whom one needed not to trouble one’s head, a most excellent Scottish ship—­for she was that from the keep up—­excellent sea-boat, easy to keep clean, most handy in every way, and if it had not been for her internal propulsion, worthy of any man’s love, I cherish to this day a profound respect for her memory.  As to the kind of trade she was engaged in and the character of my shipmates, I could not have been happier if I had had the life and the men made to my order by a benevolent Enchanter.

And suddenly I left all this.  I left it in that, to us, inconsequential manner in which a bird flies away from a comfortable branch.  It was as though all unknowing I had heard a whisper or seen something.  Well—­perhaps!  One day I was perfectly right and the next everything was gone—­glamour, flavour, interest, contentment—­everything.  It was one of these moments, you know.  The green sickness of late youth descended on me and carried me off.  Carried me off that ship, I mean.

We were only four white men on board, with a large crew of Kalashes and two Malay petty officers.  The Captain stared hard as if wondering what ailed me.  But he was a sailor, and he, too, had been young at one time.  Presently a smile came to lurk under his thick iron-gray moustache, and he observed that, of course, if I felt I must go he couldn’t keep me by main force.  And it was arranged that I should be paid off the next morning.  As I was going out of his cabin he added suddenly, in a peculiar wistful tone, that he hoped I would find what I was so anxious to go and look for.  A soft, cryptic utterance which seemed to reach deeper than any diamond-hard tool could have done.  I do believe he understood my case.

But the second engineer attacked me differently.  He was a sturdy young Scot, with a smooth face and light eyes.  His honest red countenance emerged out of the engine-room companion and then the whole robust man, with shirt sleeves turned up, wiping slowly the massive fore-arms with a lump of cotton-waste.  And his light eyes expressed bitter distaste, as though our friendship had turned to ashes.  He said weightily:  “Oh!  Aye!  I’ve been thinking it was about time for you to run away home and get married to some silly girl.”

It was tacitly understood in the port that John Nieven was a fierce misogynist; and the absurd character of the sally convinced me that he meant to be nasty—­very nasty—­had meant to say the most crushing thing he could think of.  My laugh sounded deprecatory.  Nobody but a friend could be so angry as that.  I became a little crestfallen.  Our chief engineer also took a characteristic view of my action, but in a kindlier spirit.