Presently he added, with a shake of the head: "See here: now-a-days we
trust too much to machinery and chance, and not enough to skill of hand
and brain stuff. I'd like to show you some of the crews I've had in the
Pacific and the China Sea--but I'm at it again! I'll now come, Marmion,
to the real reason why I brought you here. . . . Number 116
Intermediate is under the weather; I found him fainting in the passage.
I helped him into his cabin. He said he'd been to you to get medicine,
and you'd given him some. Now, the strange part of the business is, I
know him. He didn't remember me, however--perhaps because he didn't get
a good look at me. Coincidence is a strange thing. I can point to a
dozen in my short life, every one as remarkable, if not as startling, as
this. Here, I'll spin you a yarn:

"It happened four years ago. I had no moustache then, was fat like a
whale, and first mate on the 'Dancing Kate', a pearler in the Indian Ocean,
between Java and Australia. That was sailing, mind you--real seamanship,
no bally nonsense; a fight every weather, interesting all round. If it
wasn't a deadly calm, it was a typhoon; if it wasn't either, it was want
of food and water. I've seen us with pearls on board worth a thousand
quid, and not a drop of water nor three square meals in the caboose. But
that was life for men and not Miss Nancys. If they weren't saints, they
were sailors, afraid of nothing but God Almighty--and they do respect
Him, even when they curse the winds and the sea. Well, one day we were
lying in the open sea, about two hundred and fifty miles from Port
Darwin. There wasn't a breath of air. The sea was like glass; the sun
was drawing turpentine out of every inch of the 'Dancing Kate'. The world
was one wild blister. There wasn't a comfortable spot in the craft, and
all round us was that staring, oily sea. It was too hot to smoke, and I
used to make a Sede boy do my smoking for me. I got the benefit of the
smell without any work. I was lying under the droop of a dingey, making