"At last, about one o'clock in the morning, we were outside, and he sent me up to see if the pilot had gone. Just as I stumbled up on the bridge-deck I saw the pilot going over the side, down a rope ladder. Oh, didn't I wish I was going with him! She was beginning to roll, you see.
"And yet, though I was in the depths, so to speak, up to the eyes in it, as I stood there in the rain and wind, the sweat bitter cold on my body, I saw the coast-wise lights, and realized with a sudden jump of the heart what I was doing. I was out at sea. And I'd been born at sea. Twenty-six years in cotton-wool! Can you realize what I had done? Somewhere inside of me there was something answering the call. I was going back through toil and sorrow to my own. I was away at last. I went down again into the engine-room and told them that the pilot was gone. The Second says, 'Get yourself turned in, then.'
"I could have put my head on his shoulder and cried for joy!
"Well, I've said enough to give you an idea of the sudden turn in my fortunes. A week ago I was in love, and comfortably tucked away inside a cozy corner of the professional class. My brother was a mysterious prodigal. Suddenly he butts in, and all is changed. He's snug and safe in a good berth, he's taken up the tale of his girls just where he left off, and I'm out at sea, Fourth Engineer of a rusty old freighter bound for a place I'd never heard of: Port Duluth, British Namaqualand. Well, let him marry her and be hanged! I thought; I'm out of that world. I was resolved not to go near London town till I'd worked out my probation on the _Corydon_. I saw that I was back in the Third Form at school again. I saw that my shipmates knew nothing about culture or public schools or art or gentility. I saw they knew their business, and if I would be willing and quick to jump, they would teach it to me. My only real trouble was that old Third. If he'd only been a little cleaner in his habits! He would lie on the settee when he was off watch, the creases in his cheeks twisting, his bloodshot old eyes fixed on the toes of his red slippers and then--biff!--he would spit on the floor. But even that I could have stood if he'd been more cheerful. He never smiled, only creased his cheeks a little deeper. In time I learned why the last Fourth, a gay young spark of twenty-two, had fled out of the ship. This old Third, old Croasan his name was, didn't care what happened to him. His children were grown up and run away; he was too ignorant to get a certificate, and he was just waiting for a ship to go to the bottom and take him with her. When the Second told me that I didn't believe him. I held, as most people hold, that even a man a hundred years of age will fight like a tom-cat for his life. But I found that the Second was right!