Easterly weather, while short rations became the order of the day,
and the pinch of hunger under the breast-bone grew familiar to
every sailor in that held-up fleet. Every day added to our
numbers. In knots and groups and straggling parties we flung to
and fro before the closed gate. And meantime the outward-bound
ships passed, running through our humiliated ranks under all the
canvas they could show. It is my idea that the Easterly Wind helps
the ships away from home in the wicked hope that they shall all
come to an untimely end and be heard of no more. For six weeks did
the robber sheik hold the trade route of the earth, while our liege
lord, the West Wind, slept profoundly like a tired Titan, or else
remained lost in a mood of idle sadness known only to frank
natures. All was still to the westward; we looked in vain towards
his stronghold: the King slumbered on so deeply that he let his
foraging brother steal the very mantle of gold-lined purple clouds
from his bowed shoulders. What had become of the dazzling hoard of
royal jewels exhibited at every close of day? Gone, disappeared,
extinguished, carried off without leaving a single gold band or the
flash of a single sunbeam in the evening sky! Day after day
through a cold streak of heavens as bare and poor as the inside of
a rifled safe a rayless and despoiled sun would slink shamefacedly,
without pomp or show, to hide in haste under the waters. And still
the King slept on, or mourned the vanity of his might and his
power, while the thin-lipped intruder put the impress of his cold
and implacable spirit upon the sky and sea. With every daybreak
the rising sun had to wade through a crimson stream, luminous and
sinister, like the spilt blood of celestial bodies murdered during
the night.

In this particular instance the mean interloper held the road for