yours is--you fellows who listen to this yarn; and what friend would
throw your years and your weariness in your face? We didn't grumble at
her. To us aft, at least, it seemed as though we had been born in her,
reared in her, had lived in her for ages, had never known any other
ship. I would just as soon have abused the old village church at home
for not being a cathedral.

"And for me there was also my youth to make me patient. There was all
the East before me, and all life, and the thought that I had been tried
in that ship and had come out pretty well. And I thought of men of old
who, centuries ago, went that road in ships that sailed no better, to
the land of palms, and spices, and yellow sands, and of brown nations
ruled by kings more cruel than Nero the Roman and more splendid than
Solomon the Jew. The old bark lumbered on, heavy with her age and the
burden of her cargo, while I lived the life of youth in ignorance and
hope. She lumbered on through an interminable procession of days; and
the fresh gilding flashed back at the setting sun, seemed to cry out
over the darkening sea the words painted on her stern, '_Judea_, London.
Do or Die.'

"Then we entered the Indian Ocean and steered northerly for Java Head.
The winds were light. Weeks slipped by. She crawled on, do or die, and
people at home began to think of posting us as overdue.

"One Saturday evening, I being off duty, the men asked me to give them
an extra bucket of water or so--for washing clothes. As I did not wish
to screw on the fresh-water pump so late, I went forward whistling, and
with a key in my hand to unlock the forepeak scuttle, intending to serve
the water out of a spare tank we kept there.