"Drawing of lots?" he said. "What lots? Do you think I would have
allowed my life to go for the drawing of lots?"

Not if he could help if, I perceived, no matter what other life went.

"It was a great misfortune. Terrible. Awful," he said. "Many heads went
wrong, but the best men would live."

"The toughest, you mean," I said. He considered the word. Perhaps it was
strange to him, though his English was so good.

"Yes," he asserted at last. "The best. It was everybody for himself at
last and the ship open to all."

Thus from question to question I got the whole story. I fancy it was the
only way I could that night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he was
himself again; the first sign of it was the return of that incongruous
trick he had of drawing both his hands down his face--and it had its
meaning now, with that slight shudder of the frame and the passionate
anguish of these hands uncovering a hungry immovable face, the wide
pupils of the intent, silent, fascinating eyes.

It was an iron steamer of a most respectable origin. The burgomaster
of Falk's native town had built her. She was the first steamer ever
launched there. The burgomaster's daughter had christened her. Country
people drove in carts from miles around to see her. He told me all this.
He got the berth as what we should call a chief mate. He seemed to think
it had been a feather in his cap; and, in his own corner of the world,
this lover of life was of good parentage.