I listened to the end; then stepping into the cabin I laid my hand on the mate’s forehead.  It was cool.  He was light-headed only from extreme weakness.  Suddenly he seemed to become aware of me, and in his own voice—­of course, very feeble—­he asked regretfully: 

“Is there no chance at all to get under way, sir?”

“What’s the good of letting go our hold of the ground only to drift, Mr. Burns?” I answered.

He sighed and I left him to his immobility.  His hold on life was as slender as his hold on sanity.  I was oppressed by my lonely responsibilities.  I went into my cabin to seek relief in a few hours’ sleep, but almost before I closed my eyes the man on deck came down reporting a light breeze.  Enough to get under way with, he said.

And it was no more than just enough.  I ordered the windlass manned, the sails loosed, and the topsails set.  But by the time I had cast the ship I could hardly feel any breath of wind.  Nevertheless, I trimmed the yards and put everything on her.  I was not going to give up the attempt.

PART TWO

IV

With her anchor at the bow and clothed in canvas to her very trucks, my command seemed to stand as motionless as a model ship set on the gleams and shadows of polished marble.  It was impossible to distinguish land from water in the enigmatical tranquillity of the immense forces of the world.  A sudden impatience possessed me.

“Won’t she answer the helm at all?” I said irritably to the man whose strong brown hands grasping the spokes of the wheel stood out lighted on the darkness; like a symbol of mankind’s claim to the direction of its own fate.

He answered me.

“Yes, sir.  She’s coming-to slowly.”

“Let her head come up to south.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

I paced the poop.  There was not a sound but that of my footsteps, till the man spoke again.

“She is at south now, sir.”

I felt a slight tightness of the chest before I gave out the first course of my first command to the silent night, heavy with dew and sparkling with stars.  There was a finality in the act committing me to the endless vigilance of my lonely task.

“Steady her head at that,” I said at last.  “The course is south.”

“South, sir,” echoed the man.

I sent below the second mate and his watch and remained in charge, walking the deck through the chill, somnolent hours that precede the dawn.

Slight puffs came and went, and whenever they were strong enough to wake up the black water the murmur alongside ran through my very heart in a delicate crescendo of delight and died away swiftly.  I was bitterly tired.  The very stars seemed weary of waiting for daybreak.  It came at last with a mother-of-pearl sheen at the zenith, such as I had never seen before in the tropics, unglowing, almost gray, with a strange reminder of high latitudes.