"It always looks good to me," I observed, filling my pipe and
passing my tobacco-bag to him. "I may have my doubts now and then
on land, Charlie; but here, between the sky and the sea, I'm a
believer, right enough."
"'In the beginning He created the heaven and the earth,'" said
Charlie reverently.
We were silent for a time. The ship rolled easily; now and then
she dipped her bowsprit with a soft swish of spray; a school of
dolphins played astern, and the last of the land birds that had
followed us out flew in circles around the masts.
"Sometimes," said Charlie Jones, "I think the Good Man should have
left it the way it was after the flood just sky and water. What's
the land, anyhow? Noise and confusion, wickedness and crime,
robbing the widow and the orphan, eat or be et."
"Well," I argued, "the sea's that way. What are those fish out
there flying for, but to get out of the way of bigger fish?"
Charlie Jones surveyed me over his pipe.
"True enough, youngster," he said; "but the Lord's given 'em wings
to fly with. He ain't been so careful with the widow and the orphan."
This statement being incontrovertible, I let the argument lapse,
and sat quiet, luxuriating in the warmth, in the fresh breeze, in
the feeling of bodily well-being that came with my returning strength.
I got up and stretched, and my eyes fell on the small window of the
chart-room.
The door into the main cabin beyond was open. It was dark with the
summer twilight, except for the four rose-shaded candles on the table,
now laid for dinner. A curious effect it had--the white cloth and
gleaming pink an island of cheer in a twilight sea; and to and from
this rosy island, making short excursions, advancing, retreating,
disappearing at times, the oval white ship that was Williams's shirt
bosom.
Charlie Jones, bending to the right and raised to my own height by
the grating on which he stood, looked over my shoulder. Dinner was
about to be served. The women had come out. The table-lamps threw
their rosy glow over white necks and uncovered arms, and revealed,
higher in the shadows, the faces of the men, smug, clean-shaven,
assured, rather heavy.
I had been the guest of honor on a steam-yacht a year or two before,
after a game. There had been pink lights on the table, I remembered,
and the place-cards at dinner the first night out had been
caricatures of me in fighting trim. There had been a girl, too.
For the three days of that week-end cruise I had been mad about her;
before that first dinner, when I had known her two hours, I had
kissed her hand and told her I loved her!