XVIII.



But if the word "missing" brings all hope to an end and settles the
loss of the underwriters, the word "overdue" confirms the fears
already born in many homes ashore, and opens the door of
speculation in the market of risks.

Maritime risks, be it understood. There is a class of optimists
ready to reinsure an "overdue" ship at a heavy premium. But
nothing can insure the hearts on shore against the bitterness of
waiting for the worst.

For if a "missing" ship has never turned up within the memory of
seamen of my generation, the name of an "overdue" ship, trembling
as it were on the edge of the fatal heading, has been known to
appear as "arrived."

It must blaze up, indeed, with a great brilliance the dull
printer's ink expended on the assemblage of the few letters that
form the ship's name to the anxious eyes scanning the page in fear
and trembling. It is like the message of reprieve from the
sentence of sorrow suspended over many a home, even if some of the
men in her have been the most homeless mortals that you may find
among the wanderers of the sea.

The reinsurer, the optimist of ill-luck and disaster, slaps his
pocket with satisfaction. The underwriter, who had been trying to