mast," he said, in a repressed voice and manner that seemed in keeping with
the dim, quiet room. "Pray what do you know of the sea?"

I thought the question idle, for all my life I had lived where I could look
from my window out on the harbor.

"Why, sir," I replied, "I know enough to realize that I want to follow the
sea."

"To follow the sea?"

There was something in my father's eyes that I could not understand. He
seemed to be dreaming, as if of voyages that he himself had made. Yet I
knew he never had sailed blue water. "Well, why not?" he asked suddenly.
"There was a time--"

I was too young to realize then what has come to me since: that my father's
manner revealed a side of his nature that I never had known; that in his
own heart was a love of adventure that he never had let me see. My sixteen
years had given me a big, strong body, but no great insight, and I thought
only of my own urgent desire of the moment.

"Many a boy of ten or twelve has gone to sea," I said, "and the Island
Princess will sail in a fortnight. If you were to speak to Captain
Whidden--"

My father sternly turned on me. "No son of mine shall climb through the
cabin windows."

"But Captain Whidden--"