captain's chart, and, after a sociable meal of hard bread and water, got
our last instructions. These were simple: steer north, and keep together
as much as possible. 'Be careful with that jury rig, Marlow,' said the
captain; and Mahon, as I sailed proudly past his boat, wrinkled his
curved nose and hailed, 'You will sail that ship of yours under water,
if you don't look out, young fellow.' He was a malicious old man--and
may the deep sea where he sleeps now rock him gently, rock him tenderly
to the end of time!

"Before sunset a thick rain-squall passed over the two boats, which were
far astern, and that was the last I saw of them for a time. Next day I
sat steering my cockle-shell--my first command--with nothing but water
and sky around me. I did sight in the afternoon the upper sails of a
ship far away, but said nothing, and my men did not notice her. You see
I was afraid she might be homeward bound, and I had no mind to turn back
from the portals of the East. I was steering for Java--another blessed
name--like Bankok, you know. I steered many days.

"I need not tell you what it is to be knocking about in an open boat. I
remember nights and days of calm when we pulled, we pulled, and the
boat seemed to stand still, as if bewitched within the circle of the sea
horizon. I remember the heat, the deluge of rain-squalls that kept us
baling for dear life (but filled our water-cask), and I remember sixteen
hours on end with a mouth dry as a cinder and a steering-oar over the
stern to keep my first command head on to a breaking sea. I did not know
how good a man I was till then. I remember the drawn faces, the dejected
figures of my two men, and I remember my youth and the feeling that
will never come back any more--the feeling that I could last for ever,
outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that
lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort--to death; the