street, ten feet above the ground at the stem, rudder resting on the
inner edge of the quay, foremast tilted forward, the other two masts all
right, and that bottom, which has passed through seas so far, buried in
every sort of green and brown seaweed, the old _Speranza_. Her steps
were there, and by a slight leap I could catch them underneath and go up
hand-over-hand, till I got foothold; this I did at ten the same night
when the sea-water had mostly drained back from the land, leaving
everything very swampy, however; she there with me, and soon following
me upon the ship. I found most things cracked into tiny fragments,
twisted, disfigured out of likeness, the house-walls themselves
displaced a little at the nip, the bow of the cedar skiff smashed in to
her middle against the aft starboard corner of the galley; and were it
not for the fact that the air-pinnace had not broken from her heavy
ropings, and one of the compasses still whole, I do not know what I
should have done: for the four old water-logged boats in the cove have
utterly disappeared.

I made her sleep on the cabin-floor amid the _débris_ of berth and
everything, and I myself slept high up in the wood to the west. I am
writing now lying in the long-grass the morning after, the sun rising,
though I cannot see him. My plan for to-day is to cut three or four logs
with the saw, lay them on the ground by the ship, lower the pinnace upon
them, so get her gradually down into the water, and by evening bid a
long farewell to Imbros, which drives me out in this way. Still, I look
forward with pleasure to our hour's run to the Mainland, when I shall
teach her to steer by the compass, and manipulate liquid-air, as I have
taught her to dress, to talk, to cook, to write, to think, to live. For
she is my creation, this creature: as it were, a 'rib from my side.'

But what is the design of this expulsion? And what was it that she