shadow of death--that even these men damned a system which, in its stern
withdrawal of their class for long spaces of time from their own
womenfolk, brought evil results to the forecastle.

The soldier was always in touch with his own social world, and he had
leave sufficient to enable him to break the back of monotony. He drank,
gambled, and orated; but his indulgences were little compared with the
debauches of able-bodied seamen when, after months of sea-life, they
reached port again. A ship in port at such a time was not a scene of
evangelical habits. Women of loose class, flower-girls, fruit-sellers,
and costermongers turned the forecastle into a pleasure-house where the
pleasures were not always secret; where native modesty suffered no
affright, and physical good cheer, with ribald paraphrase, was notable
everywhere.

"How did it happen, Michael?"

As he spoke, Dyck looked round the forecastle of the Ariadne with a
restless and inquisitive expression. Michael was seated a few feet away,
his head bent forward, his hands clasped around his knees.

"Well, it don't matter one way or 'nother," he replied; "but it was like
this. The night you got a letter from Virginia we was penniless; so at
last I went with my watch to the pawnbroker's. You said you'd wait till
I got back, though you knew not where I was goin'. When I got back, you
were still broodin'. You were seated on a horse-block by the chemist's
lamp where you had read the letter. It's not for me to say of what you
were thinkin'; but I could guess. You'd been struck hard, and there had
come to you a letter from one who meant more to you than all the rest of
the world; and you couldn't answer it because things weren't right.