"Cry?"

"Shed tears," he explained briefly, and rolled up the chart.

I can answer for it, he was a good man--as good as ever stepped
upon a ship's deck--but he could not bear the feeling of a dead
ship under his feet: the sickly, disheartening feeling which the
men of some "overdue" ships that come into harbour at last under a
jury-rig must have felt, combated, and overcome in the faithful
discharge of their duty.



XX.



It is difficult for a seaman to believe that his stranded ship does
not feel as unhappy at the unnatural predicament of having no water
under her keel as he is himself at feeling her stranded.

Stranding is, indeed, the reverse of sinking. The sea does not
close upon the water-logged hull with a sunny ripple, or maybe with
the angry rush of a curling wave, erasing her name from the roll of
living ships. No. It is as if an invisible hand had been
stealthily uplifted from the bottom to catch hold of her keel as it
glides through the water.

More than any other event does stranding bring to the sailor a
sense of utter and dismal failure. There are strandings and