while I hesitated about an appropriate sentence he made himself heard:

"I expect you'll have your hands pretty full of tangled-up business."

I asked him what made him think so; and he answered that it was his
general experience of the world. Ship a long time away from her port,
owners inaccessible by cable, and the only man who could explain matters
dead and buried.

"And you yourself new to the business in a way," he concluded in a sort
of unanswerable tone.

"Don't insist," I said. "I know it only too well. I only wish you could
impart to me some small portion of your experience before I go. As it
can't be done in ten minutes I had better not begin to ask you. There's
that harbour launch waiting for me, too. But I won't feel really at
peace till I have that ship of mine out in the Indian Ocean."

He remarked casually that from Bangkok to the Indian Ocean was a pretty
long step. And this murmur, like a dim flash from a dark lantern, showed
me for a moment the broad belt of islands and reefs between that unknown
ship, which was mine, and the freedom of the great waters of the globe.

But I felt no apprehension. I was familiar enough with the Archipelago
by that time. Extreme patience and extreme care would see me through the
region of broken land, of faint airs, and of dead water to where I would
feel at last my command swing on the great swell and list over to the
great breath of regular winds, that would give her the feeling of a
large, more intense life. The road would be long. All roads are long
that lead toward one's heart's desire. But this road my mind's eye