"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, childlike 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 towards 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 ship 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 recognized 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 sternaway.
"Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the seaman standing 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 over-shadowed 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," passed in a tone of intense relief between two seamen.
"Let go and haul."
The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst cheery cries.
And now the frightful whiskers made themselves heard giving various orders.
Already the ship was drawing ahead.And I was alone with her.
Nothing! no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion of a seaman with his first command.
Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, on the very edge of a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway of Erebus--yes, I was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer of my cabin and of my thoughts, as though he were my second self, had lowered himself into the water to take his punishment:
a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny.
End
