Beside him were the first and third mates, both of them being quiet men of poor stature, who looked at Captain Bilge with what seemed to me an apprehensive expression in their eyes.

The vessel was on the eve of departure.  Her deck presented that scene of bustle and alacrity dear to the sailor’s heart.  Men were busy nailing up the masts, hanging the bowsprit over the side, varnishing the lee-scuppers and pouring hot tar down the companion-way.

Captain Bilge, with a megaphone to his lips, kept calling out to the men in his rough sailor fashion: 

“Now, then, don’t over-exert yourselves, gentlemen.  Remember, please, that we have plenty of time.  Keep out of the sun as much as you can.  Step carefully in the rigging there, Jones; I fear it’s just a little high for you.  Tut, tut, Williams, don’t get yourself so dirty with that tar, you won’t look fit to be seen.”

I stood leaning over the gaff of the mainsail and thinking—­yes, thinking, dear reader, of my mother.  I hope that you will think none the less of me for that.  Whenever things look dark, I lean up against something and think of mother.  If they get positively black, I stand on one leg and think of father.  After that I can face anything.

Did I think, too, of another, younger than mother and fairer than father?  Yes, I did.  “Bear up, darling,” I had whispered as she nestled her head beneath my oilskins and kicked out backward with one heel in the agony of her girlish grief, “in five years the voyage will be over, and after three more like it, I shall come back with money enough to buy a second-hand fishing-net and settle down on shore.”

Meantime the ship’s preparations were complete.  The masts were all in position, the sails nailed up, and men with axes were busily chopping away the gangway.

“All ready?” called the Captain.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Then hoist the anchor in board and send a man down with the key to open the bar.”

Opening the bar! the last sad rite of departure.  How often in my voyages have I seen it; the little group of men soon to be exiled from their home, standing about with saddened faces, waiting to see the man with the key open the bar—­held there by some strange fascination.

* * * * *

Next morning with a fair wind astern we had buzzed around the corner of England and were running down the Channel.

I know no finer sight, for those who have never seen it, than the English Channel.  It is the highway of the world.  Ships of all nations are passing up and down, Dutch, Scotch, Venezuelan, and even American.

Chinese junks rush to and fro.  Warships, motor yachts, icebergs, and lumber rafts are everywhere.  If I add to this fact that so thick a fog hangs over it that it is entirely hidden from sight, my readers can form some idea of the majesty of the scene.

* * * * *