“Let that go,” Captain Whalley had said with a superb confidence in his body.  “Acts of God,” he added.  In the midst of life we are in death, but he trusted his Maker with a still greater fearlessness—­his Maker who knew his thoughts, his human affections, and his motives.  His Creator knew what use he was making of his health—­how much he wanted it . . .  “I trust my first illness will be my last.  I’ve never been ill that I can remember,” he had remarked.  “Let it go.”

But at this early stage he had already awakened Massy’s hostility by refusing to make it six hundred instead of five.  “I cannot do that,” was all he had said, simply, but with so much decision that Massy desisted at once from pressing the point, but had thought to himself, “Can’t!  Old curmudgeon. Won’t He must have lots of money, but he would like to get hold of a soft berth and the sixth part of my profits for nothing if he only could.”

And during these years Massy’s dislike grew under the restraint of something resembling fear.  The simplicity of that man appeared dangerous.  Of late he had changed, however, had appeared less formidable and with a lessened vigor of life, as though he had received a secret wound.  But still he remained incomprehensible in his simplicity, fearlessness, and rectitude.  And when Massy learned that he meant to leave him at the end of the time, to leave him confronted with the problem of boilers, his dislike blazed up secretly into hate.

It had made him so clear-eyed that for a long time now Mr. Sterne could have told him nothing he did not know.  He had much ado in trying to terrorize that mean sneak into silence; he wanted to deal alone with the situation; and—­incredible as it might have appeared to Mr. Sterne—­he had not yet given up the desire and the hope of inducing that hated old man to stay.  Why! there was nothing else to do, unless he were to abandon his chances of fortune.  But now, suddenly, since the crossing of the bar at Batu Beru things seemed to be coming rapidly to a point.  It disquieted him so much that the study of the winning numbers failed to soothe his agitation:  and the twilight in the cabin deepened, very somber.

He put the list away, muttering once more, “Oh, no, my boy, you don’t.  Not if I know it.”  He did not mean the blinking, eavesdropping humbug to force his action.  He took his head again into his hands; his immobility confined in the darkness of this shut-up little place seemed to make him a thing apart infinitely removed from the stir and the sounds of the deck.

He heard them:  the passengers were beginning to jabber excitedly; somebody dragged a heavy box past his door.  He heard Captain Whalley’s voice above—­

“Stations, Mr. Sterne.”  And the answer from somewhere on deck forward—­

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“We shall moor head up stream this time; the ebb has made.”

“Head up stream, sir.”

“You will see to it, Mr. Sterne.”