And it was difficult to believe that the masthead and its light, and not
the star, were dancing.

From the lofty promenade deck the Atlantic wave is a little enough
thing, so far down beneath you that you can scarcely even sniff its
salty tang. But when the elevator-boy--always waiting for me--had
lowered me through five floors, I stood on tiptoe and gazed through the
thick glass of a porthole there; and the flying Atlantic wave,
theatrically moonlit now, was very near. Suddenly something jumped up
and hit the glass of the port-hole a fearful, crashing blow that made me
draw away my face in alarm; and the solid ground on which I stood
vibrated for an instant. It was the Atlantic wave, caressing. Anybody on
the other side of this thin, nicely painted steel plate (I thought)
would be in a rather hopeless situation. I turned away, half shivering,
from the menace. All was calm and warm and reassuring within the
ship.... In the withdrawn privacy of my berth, with the curtains closed
over the door and Murray Gilchrist's new novel in my hand and a poised
electric lamp over my head, I looked about as I lay, and everything was
still except a towel that moved gently, almost imperceptibly, to and
fro. Yet the towel had copied the immobility of the star. It alone did
not oscillate. Forty-five thousand tons were swaying; but not that
towel. The sense of actual present romance was too strong to let me
read. I extinguished the light, and listened in the dark to the faint
straining noises of the enormous organism. I thought: "This magic thing
is taking me _there_! In three days I shall be on that shore." Terrific
adventure! The rest of the passengers were merely going to America.

* * * * *

The magic thing was much more magic than I had conceived. The next