in its infatuated disregard of defects.

There are ships which bear a bad name, but I have yet to meet one
whose crew for the time being failed to stand up angrily for her
against every criticism. One ship which I call to mind now had the
reputation of killing somebody every voyage she made. This was no
calumny, and yet I remember well, somewhere far back in the late
seventies, that the crew of that ship were, if anything, rather
proud of her evil fame, as if they had been an utterly corrupt lot
of desperadoes glorying in their association with an atrocious
creature. We, belonging to other vessels moored all about the
Circular Quay in Sydney, used to shake our heads at her with a
great sense of the unblemished virtue of our own well-loved ships.

I shall not pronounce her name. She is "missing" now, after a
sinister but, from the point of view of her owners, a useful career
extending over many years, and, I should say, across every ocean of
our globe. Having killed a man for every voyage, and perhaps
rendered more misanthropic by the infirmities that come with years
upon a ship, she had made up her mind to kill all hands at once
before leaving the scene of her exploits. A fitting end, this, to
a life of usefulness and crime--in a last outburst of an evil
passion supremely satisfied on some wild night, perhaps, to the
applauding clamour of wind and wave.

How did she do it? In the word "missing" there is a horrible depth
of doubt and speculation. Did she go quickly from under the men's
feet, or did she resist to the end, letting the sea batter her to
pieces, start her butts, wrench her frame, load her with an
increasing weight of salt water, and, dismasted, unmanageable,