the wheel. It might have been June, yet we had but few days to
Christmas. The noon ceiling was a frail blue, where gauze was suspended
in motionless loops and folds. The track of the sun was incandescent
silver. A few sailing vessels idled in the North Channel, their sails
slack; but we could not see a steamer in what is one of the world's
busiest fairways. We ran on a level keel, and there was no movement but
the tremor of the engines. We should catch the tide at the Shipwash, and
go up on it to Billingsgate and be home by midnight. How foolish it is
to portion your future, at sea!

It was when I was arranging what I should do in the later hours of that
day, when we were at Billingsgate, that the skipper, staring round the
North Channel, said to me: "It looks as though London had been wiped out
since we left it. Where's the ships?"

The Maplin watched us pass with its red eye. We raised all the lights
true and clear. I went below, and we were talking of London, and the
last trains, when the engine-room telegraph gave us a great shock. "Stop
her!" we heard the watch cry below.

I don't know how we got on deck. There were too many on the companion
ladder at the same time. While we were struggling upwards we heard that
frantic bell ring often enough to drive the engine-room people
distracted. I got to the ship's side in time to see a liner's bulk glide
by. She would have been invisible but for her strata of lights. She was
just beyond our touch. A figure on her, high over us, came to her rail,
distinct in the blur of the light of a cabin behind him, and shouted at
us. I remember very well what he said, but it is forbidden to put down
such words here. The man at our wheel paid no attention to him, that
danger being now past, and so of no importance. He continued to spin the