conviction replacing his previous voluble delivery—­the gentleman was already “in the similitude of a corpse.”  “What?  What do you say?” I asked.  He assumed a startlingly ferocious demeanour, and imitated to perfection the act of stabbing from behind.  “Already like the body of one deported,” he explained, with the insufferably conceited air of his kind after what they imagine a display of cleverness.  Behind him I perceived Jim smiling silently at me, and with a raised hand checking the exclamation on my lips.

’Then, while the half-caste, bursting with importance, shouted his orders, while the yards swung creaking and the heavy boom came surging over, Jim and I, alone as it were, to leeward of the mainsail, clasped each other’s hands and exchanged the last hurried words.  My heart was freed from that dull resentment which had existed side by side with interest in his fate.  The absurd chatter of the half-caste had given more reality to the miserable dangers of his path than Stein’s careful statements.  On that occasion the sort of formality that had been always present in our intercourse vanished from our speech; I believe I called him “dear boy,” and he tacked on the words “old man” to some half-uttered expression of gratitude, as though his risk set off against my years had made us more equal in age and in feeling.  There was a moment of real and profound intimacy, unexpected and short-lived like a glimpse of some everlasting, of some saving truth.  He exerted himself to soothe me as though he had been the more mature of the two.  “All right, all right,” he said, rapidly, and with feeling.  “I promise to take care of myself.  Yes; I won’t take any risks.  Not a single blessed risk.  Of course not.  I mean to hang out.  Don’t you worry.  Jove!  I feel as if nothing could touch me.  Why! this is luck from the word Go.  I wouldn’t spoil such a magnificent chance!” . . .  A magnificent chance!  Well, it was magnificent, but chances are what men make them, and how was I to know?  As he had said, even I—­even I remembered—­his—­his misfortune against him.  It was true.  And the best thing for him was to go.

’My gig had dropped in the wake of the brigantine, and I saw him aft detached upon the light of the westering sun, raising his cap high above his head.  I heard an indistinct shout, “You—­shall—­hear—­of—­me.”  Of me, or from me, I don’t know which.  I think it must have been of me.  My eyes were too dazzled by the glitter of the sea below his feet to see him clearly; I am fated never to see him clearly; but I can assure you no man could have appeared less “in the similitude of a corpse,” as that half-caste croaker had put it.  I could see the little wretch’s face, the shape and colour of a ripe pumpkin, poked out somewhere under Jim’s elbow.  He, too, raised his arm as if for a downward thrust.  Absit omen!’

CHAPTER 24