there are hunting men who cannot ride. There are navigators who
will steer you from London to Petersburg without taking a sight,
from the Thames to the Suez Canal without looking at their sextant.
Such a sailor as this was Luke FitzHenry. Perfectly trained, he
assimilated each item of experience with an insatiable greed for
knowledge--and it was all maritime knowledge. He was a sailor and
nothing else. But it is already something--as they say in France--
to be a good sailor.

Luke FitzHenry was a man of middle height, sturdy, with broad
shoulders and a slow step. His clean-shaven face was a long oval,
with pessimistic, brooding eyes--eyes that saw everything except the
small modicum of good which is in all human things, and to this they
were persistently blind. Taking into consideration the small, set
mouth, it was eminently a pugnacious face--a face that might easily
degenerate to the coarseness of passion in the trough of a losing
fight. But, fortunately, Luke's lines were cast upon the great
waters, and he who fights the sea must learn to conquer, not by
passionate effort, but by consistent, cool resolve. Those who
worked with him feared him, and in so doing learnt the habit of his
ways. The steersman, with one eye on the binnacle, knew always
where to find him with the other; for Luke hardly moved during his
entire watch on deck. He took his station at the starboard end of
the narrow bridge when he came on duty, and from that spot he rarely
moved. These little things betray a man, if one only has the
patience to piece them together.

Those who go down to the sea in ships, and even those who take their
pleasure on the great water, know the relative merits of the man who
goes to his post and stays there, and of him who is all over the