Chapter 17

_Three Bells!_ He rose and going to the open transom, looked down into the cabin. The long dinner table had been relieved of dessert-dishes, but the after-dinner bottles were there in profusion, and cigar-boxes and cigarettes within convenient reach; it was an odd scene; a picture of confusion in a dead calm. The lights were burning low and there was no sound save the hoarse breathing of some of the revelers who had subsided into uncomfortable positions and were too heavy with sleep to seek easier ones. Clitheroe saw at the head of the table the Commodore, stretched back in his easy chair; he was fast asleep; there was no doubt about that. His guests one and all were dozing. The drowsy stupor that follows a debauch pervaded the whole company. I venture the assurance that not one person present could have been aroused in season to save himself or herself had the ship at that moment struck a reef, and foundered.

There they were, dimly outlined under the cabin-lamps, the companions with whom for a season Clitheroe had been more or less intimately associated in the Misty City; the Bohemians who had found it an easy and pleasant thing to flock upon the deck of the "_Waring_," one foggy afternoon, and set sail on a summer cruise. The Commodore invited them for his entertainment, and because he was a mighty good fellow and could afford to. They went for a change of air and scene, in search of adventure--and moreover they were sure of luxurious hospitality for at least six months. Clitheroe joined the company, not only for the reason that there seemed nothing else for him to do, but he was glad of the opportunity of revisiting a quarter of the globe so very dear to him. This voyage, he thought, might re-awaken his interest in life; at any rate, he could lose nothing by taking it, and that settled the question for him.

The singers, the dancers, the painters and poets made life very lively in that summer sea; it was a case of sweet idleness with wine, women and wits, and all the world before them where to choose. It must be confessed that Clitheroe had enjoyed himself in the society of these old comrades--you would recognize most of them were he to name them; but tonight, or rather this early morning he had begun to moralize, as he peered down the transom upon the half-shadowy forms of those feasters who had fallen by the way. He was asking himself if it paid--this high-pressure happiness that knew no respite save temporary insensibility? He began to think that it did not, and with a shrug of his shoulders and a faint sigh, he turned away. He was about to resume his solitary watch, for he could not sleep on such a night, when his eye was attracted by a flitting shadow weaving to and fro astern; it seemed to be soaring upon the face of the waters; was it some broad-winged sea-bird following in their wake? He watched it as it drew near, growing larger and larger every moment. No! it was not a bird; but it was the next thing to one.

Out of the darkness was evolved the slender hull of a canoe, the wide, many ribbed sail, and the dusky forms of three naked islanders. They had not yet taken note of him; with a sudden impulse, he stole up to the transom, and standing over it so that the lights from the cabin-lamps shone full upon him, he waved a signal to the savages, enjoining silence, and bidding them approach with caution.

In a few moments they had wafted themselves noiselessly up under the companion ladder, and there, with suppressed excitement, he was recognized. Old friends these, pals in the past, young chiefs from an island he had loved and mourned.

There was a moment of passionate greeting, and but a moment, in the silence under the stars, then, with a sudden resolve, and with never a glance backward, Clitheroe, descending the ladder, entered the canoe and it swung off into the night.

Two hours later, the "_Waring_," having run clear of the labyrinthine reefs, steamed up and was out of sight before daybreak.

* * * * *

"_And what is left? Dust and Ash and a Tale--or not even a Tale_!"

MARCUS AURELIUS.