he was back. I was surprised, for he had told me of his wife and
said that he was returning to her and would give over sailing on
far voyages.

"Where do you go, master?" he asked, after our first greetings.

I shrugged my shoulders. It was a hard question. "To all the
world, "was my answer. "All the world, all the sea, and all the
islands that are in the sea."

"I will go with you," he said simply. "My wife is dead."

I never had a brother, but from what I have seen of other men's
brothers I doubt if any man ever had one who was to him what Otoo
was to me. He was brother, and father and mother as well. And
this I know--I lived a straighter and a better man because of
Otoo. I had to live straight in Otoo's eyes. Because of him I
dared not tarnish myself. He made me his ideal, compounding me, I
fear, chiefly out of his own love and worship; and there were
times when I stood close to the steep pitch of hell and would
have taken the plunge had not the thought of Otoo restrained me.
His pride in me entered into me until it became one of the major
rules in my personal code to do nothing that would diminish that
pride of his. Naturally, I did not learn right away what his
feelings were toward me. He never criticised, never censured, and
slowly the exalted place I held in his eyes dawned upon me, and
slowly I grew to comprehend the hurt I could inflict upon him by
being anything less than my best.

For seventeen years we were together. For seventeen years he was