uncertain. Other steamers came out to look for her, and ultimately
towed her away from the cold edge of the world into a harbour with
docks and workshops, where, with many blows of hammers, her
pulsating heart of steel was set going again to go forth presently
in the renewed pride of its strength, fed on fire and water,
breathing black smoke into the air, pulsating, throbbing,
shouldering its arrogant way against the great rollers in blind
disdain of winds and sea.

The track she had made when drifting while her heart stood still
within her iron ribs looked like a tangled thread on the white
paper of the chart. It was shown to me by a friend, her second
officer. In that surprising tangle there were words in minute
letters--"gales," "thick fog," "ice"--written by him here and there
as memoranda of the weather. She had interminably turned upon her
tracks, she had crossed and recrossed her haphazard path till it
resembled nothing so much as a puzzling maze of pencilled lines
without a meaning. But in that maze there lurked all the romance
of the "overdue" and a menacing hint of "missing."

"We had three weeks of it," said my friend, "just think of that!"

"How did you feel about it?" I asked.

He waved his hand as much as to say: It's all in the day's work.
But then, abruptly, as if making up his mind:

"I'll tell you. Towards the last I used to shut myself up in my
berth and cry."