separated.
I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the steward

returned.
"Sorry, sir. Kettle barely warm. Shall I light the spirit-lamp?"

"Never mind."
I came out on deck slowly. It was now a matter of conscience to

shave the land as close as possible - for now he must go overboard
whenever the ship was put in stays. Must! There could be no going

back for him. After a moment I walked over to leeward and my heart
flew into my mouth at the nearness of the land on the bow. Under

any other circumstances I would not have held on a minute longer.
The second mate had followed me anxiously.

I looked on till I felt I could command my voice. "She will
weather," I said then in a quiet tone. "Are you going to try that,

sir?" he stammered out incredulously.
I took no notice of him and raised my tone just enough to be heard

by the helmsman.
"Keep her good full."

"Good full, sir."
The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world was silent.

The strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and
denser was too much for me. I had shut my eyes - because the ship

must go closer. She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we
standing still?

When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a
thump. The black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right

over the ship like a toweringfragment of the everlasting night.
On that enormous mass of blackness there was not a gleam to be

seen, not a sound to be heard. It was gliding irresistibly toward
us and yet seemed already within reach of the hand. I saw the

vague figures of the watch grouped in the waist, gazing in awed
silence.

"Are you going on, sir," inquired an unsteady voice at my elbow.
I ignored it. I had to go on.

"Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't do now," I said,
warningly.

"I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman answered me, in
strange, quavering tones.

Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't say in the shadow
of the land, but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up

as it were, gone too close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.
"Give the mate a call," I said to the young man who stood at my

elbow as still as death. "And turn all hands up."
My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from the height of the

land. Several voices cried out together: "We are all on deck,
sir."

Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding closer,
towering higher, without a light, without a sound. Such a hush had

fallen on the ship that she might have been a bark of the dead
floating in slowly under the very gate of Erebus.

"My God! Where are we?"
It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was thunderstruck, and as

it were deprived of the moral support of his whiskers. He clapped
his hands and absolutely cried out, "Lost!"

"Be quiet," I said, sternly.
He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowygesture of his despair.

"What are we doing here?"
"Looking for the land wind."

He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me recklessly.
"She will never get out. You have done it, sir. I knew it'd end

in something like this. She will never weather, and you are too
close now to stay. She'll drift ashore before she's round. O my

God!"
I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his poor devoted

head, and shook it violently.
"She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear himself away.

"Is she? . . . Keep good full there!"
"Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a frightened, thin, child-

like voice.
I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking it. "Ready

about, do you hear? You go forward" - shake - "and stop there" -
shake - "and hold your noise" - shake - "and see these head-sheets

properly overhauled" - shake, shake - shake.
And all the time I dared not look toward the land lest my heart

should fail me. I released my grip at last and he ran forward as
if fleeing for dear life.

I wondered what my double there in the sail-locker thought of this
commotion. He was able to hear everything - and perhaps he was

able to understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close -
no less. My first order "Hard alee!" re-echoed ominously under the

towering shadow of Koh-ring as if I had shouted in a mountain
gorge. And then I watched the land intently. In that smooth water

and light wind it was impossible to feel the ship coming-to. No!
I could not feel her. And my second self was making now ready to

slip out and lower himself overboard. Perhaps he was gone already
. . .?

The great black mass brooding over our very mastheads began to
pivot away from the ship's side silently. And now I forgot the

secret stranger ready to depart, and remembered only that I was a
total stranger to the ship. I did not know her. Would she do it?

How was she to be handled?
I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly. She was perhaps

stopped, and her very fate hung in the balance, with the black mass
of Koh-ring like the gate of the everlasting night towering over

her taffrail. What would she do now? Had she way on her yet? I
stepped to the side swiftly, and on the shadowy water I could see

nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash revealing the glassy
smoothness of the sleeping surface. It was impossible to tell -

and I had not learned yet the feel of my ship. Was she moving?
What I needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper, which I

could throw overboard and watch. I had nothing on me. To run down
for it I didn't dare. There was no time. All at once my strained,

yearning stare distinguished a white object floating within a yard
of the ship's side. White on the black water. A phosphorescent

flash passed under it. What was that thing? . . . I recognised my
own floppy hat. It must have fallen off his head . . . and he

didn't bother.
Now I had what I wanted - the saving mark for my eyes. But I

hardly thought of my other self, now gone from the ship, to be
hidden forever from all friendly faces, to be a fugitive and a

vagabond on the earth, with no brand of the curse on his sane
forehead to stay a slaying hand . . . too proud to explain.

And I watched the hat - the expression of my sudden pity for his
mere flesh. It had been meant to save his homeless head from the

dangers of the sun. And now - behold - it was saving the ship, by
serving me for a mark to help out the ignorance of my strangeness.

Ha! It was drifting forward, warning me just in time that the ship
had gathered sternway.

"Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the seamanstanding
still like a statue.

The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light as he jumped
round to the other side and spun round the wheel.

I walked to the break of the poop. On the overshadowed deck all
hands stood by the forebraces waiting for my order. The stars

ahead seemed to be gliding from right to left. And all was so
still in the world that I heard the quiet remark "She's round,"