here and there its characteristics remain the same with a strange
consistency in everything that is vile and base. The members of
the West Wind's dynasty are modified in a way by the regions they
rule, as a Hohenzollern, without ceasing to be himself, becomes a
Roumanian by virtue of his throne, or a Saxe-Coburg learns to put
the dress of Bulgarian phrases upon his particular thoughts,
whatever they are.

The autocratic sway of the West Wind, whether forty north or forty
south of the Equator, is characterized by an open, generous, frank,
barbarous recklessness. For he is a great autocrat, and to be a
great autocrat you must be a great barbarian. I have been too much
moulded to his sway to nurse now any idea of rebellion in my heart.
Moreover, what is a rebellion within the four walls of a room
against the tempestuous rule of the West Wind? I remain faithful
to the memory of the mighty King with a double-edged sword in one
hand, and in the other holding out rewards of great daily runs and
famously quick passages to those of his courtiers who knew how to
wait watchfully for every sign of his secret mood. As we deep-
water men always reckoned, he made one year in three fairly lively
for anybody having business upon the Atlantic or down there along
the "forties" of the Southern Ocean. You had to take the bitter
with the sweet; and it cannot be denied he played carelessly with
our lives and fortunes. But, then, he was always a great king, fit
to rule over the great waters where, strictly speaking, a man would
have no business whatever but for his audacity.

The audacious should not complain. A mere trader ought not to
grumble at the tolls levied by a mighty king. His mightiness was
sometimes very overwhelming; but even when you had to defy him