"It has been blowing great guns, as you know, all the last few days. The
ship was running under easy sail when I heard a shout of 'Man
overboard!' The lifebuoy was thrown, and, looking astern, I saw the man
had caught it. But it was a raging sea--I saw and felt that to try and
lower a boat to save the poor wretch must expose the men who manned it
to the greatest danger. The crew read in my face the fearful struggle
going on within me, and twenty, thirty, perhaps forty volunteers, headed
by officers and midshipmen, crowded round me, beseeching me almost on
their knees: 'Let us save our comrade, sir! we can't desert him!' I was
weak enough to yield. By unexpected good luck, we managed to lower a
boat without accident, and she started manned by a dozen men. We saw
her, by still greater good fortune, get to the poor fellow and save him,
and I was steering about so as to make it easier for her to get back,
when a huge wave broke over her. A shout of horror went up from her, and
then silence. In another minute I saw my boat capsized, on the crest of
a wave, with two or three men, one of them a midshipman, clinging to the
keel. To shorten their agony, I made as though I was going ahead. The
middy understood that I was forced to abandon them, for he waved a
farewell and let himself go. I had been weak, but I was cruelly
punished. Thirteen men drowned instead of one, and by my fault!"

I shall never forget the severe expression that came over the
commander's face as he added, laying his hand on my shoulder, "Some day,
boy, you may be in command. May the thought of me remind you always that
duty is inexorable!"

After this final episode in my first cruise I went ashore, but I went
ashore a sailor to the core, and my one idea, when I got back to Paris,
was to acquire the technical information needed for my profession. To