impassive earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a
tremor. My eye followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here,
now there, above the plain, according to the devious curves of the
stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I lost it at last
behind the mitre-shaped hill of the great pagoda. And then I was
left alone with my ship, anchored at the head of the Gulf of Siam.

She floated at the starting-point of a long journey, very still in
an immense stillness, the shadows of her spars flung far to the
eastward by the setting sun. At that moment I was alone on her
decks. There was not a sound in her--and around us nothing moved,
nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the air, not
a cloud in the sky. In this breathless pause at the threshold of a
long passage we seemed to be measuring our fitness for a long and
arduous enterprise, the appointed task of both our existences to be
carried out, far from all human eyes, with only sky and sea for
spectators and for judges.

There must have been some glare in the air to interfere with one's
sight, because it was only just before the sun left us that my
roaming eyes made out beyond the highest ridge of the principal
islet of the group something which did away with the solemnity of
perfect solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with
tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out above the shadowy
earth, while I lingered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship's
rail as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend. But, with all that
multitude of celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of
quiet communion with her was gone for good. And there were also
disturbing sounds by this time--voices, footsteps forward; the
steward flitted along the maindeck, a busily ministering spirit; a