spanker-booms and such-like--because at times the frightful impetus
of her rolling would part a fourfold tackle of new three-inch
Manilla line as if it were weaker than pack-thread.

It was only poetic justice that the chief mate who had made a
mistake--perhaps a half-excusable one--about the distribution of
his ship's cargo should pay the penalty. A piece of one of the
minor spars that did carry away flew against the chief mate's back,
and sent him sliding on his face for quite a considerable distance
along the main deck. Thereupon followed various and unpleasant
consequences of a physical order--"queer symptoms," as the captain,
who treated them, used to say; inexplicable periods of
powerlessness, sudden accesses of mysterious pain; and the patient
agreed fully with the regretful mutters of his very attentive
captain wishing that it had been a straightforward broken leg.
Even the Dutch doctor who took the case up in Samarang offered no
scientific explanation. All he said was: "Ah, friend, you are
young yet; it may be very serious for your whole life. You must
leave your ship; you must quite silent be for three months--quite
silent."

Of course, he meant the chief mate to keep quiet--to lay up, as a
matter of fact. His manner was impressive enough, if his English
was childishly imperfect when compared with the fluency of Mr.
Hudig, the figure at the other end of that passage, and memorable
enough in its way. In a great airy ward of a Far Eastern hospital,
lying on my back, I had plenty of leisure to remember the dreadful
cold and snow of Amsterdam, while looking at the fronds of the
palm-trees tossing and rustling at the height of the window. I
could remember the elated feeling and the soul-gripping cold of