both held. I could have kissed their rough, cold iron palms in
gratitude if they had not been buried in slimy mud under ten
fathoms of water. Ultimately they brought us up with the jibboom
of a Dutch brig poking through our spanker--nothing worse. And a
miss is as good as a mile.

But not in art. Afterwards the master said to me in a shy mumble,
"She wouldn't luff up in time, somehow. What's the matter with
her?" And I made no answer.

Yet the answer was clear. The ship had found out the momentary
weakness of her man. Of all the living creatures upon land and
sea, it is ships alone that cannot be taken in by barren pretences,
that will not put up with bad art from their masters.



X.



From the main truck of the average tall ship the horizon describes
a circle of many miles, in which you can see another ship right
down to her water-line; and these very eyes which follow this
writing have counted in their time over a hundred sail becalmed, as
if within a magic ring, not very far from the Azores--ships more or
less tall. There were hardly two of them heading exactly the same
way, as if each had meditated breaking out of the enchanted circle
at a different point of the compass. But the spell of the calm is
a strong magic. The following day still saw them scattered within