hours of the night to get on terms with the ship of which I knew
nothing, manned by men of whom I knew very little more. Fast
alongside a wharf, littered like any ship in port with a tangle of
unrelated things, invaded by unrelated shore people, I had hardly
seen her yet properly. Now, as she lay cleared for sea, the
stretch of her maindeck seemed to me very fine under the stars.
Very fine, very roomy for her size, and very inviting. I descended
the poop and paced the waist, my mind picturing to myself the
coming passage through the Malay Archipelago, down the Indian
Ocean, and up the Atlantic. All its phases were familiar enough to
me, every characteristic, all the alternatives which were likely to
face me on the high seas--everything! . . . except the novel
responsibility of command. But I took heart from the reasonable
thought that the ship was like other ships, the men like other men,
and that the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises
expressly for my discomfiture.

Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I bethought myself of a
cigar and went below to get it. All was still down there.
Everybody at the after end of the ship was sleeping profoundly. I
came out again on the quarter-deck, agreeably at ease in my
sleeping-suit on that warm breathless night, barefooted, a glowing
cigar in my teeth, and, going forward, I was met by the profound
silence of the fore end of the ship. Only as I passed the door of
the forecastle I heard a deep, quiet, trustful sigh of some sleeper
inside. And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea
as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that
untempted life presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an
elementary moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its
appeal and by the singleness of its purpose.