o passed
the ball of spun-yarn in time with him. The mate was aft,
superintending some work upon the mizzen, and Bill took his job
easily. The Dago, with his little smile to which his lips shaped
themselves unconsciously, passed the ball in silence. The Cockney
eyed him unpleasantly.

"Say, Dago," he said presently, "wot was the name o' that there place
you said you come from?"

"Eh?" The Dago roused from his smiling reverie. "De name? Ah, yais."
He pronounced the name slowly, making its syllables render their
music.

"Yus," said Bill, "I thought that was it."

He went on working, steadily, nonchalantly. The Dago stared at him,
perplexed.

"Why you want to know dat name?" he asked at length.

"Well," said Bill, "you bin talkin' abaht it a lot, and so, d'yer
see, I reckoned I'd find out. An' yesterday I 'ad to go into the
cabin to get at the lazareet 'atch, an' the chart was spread out on
the table."

"De chart?" The Dago was slow to understand. "Ah, yais. Mapa chart.
An' you look at-a 'im, yais?"

"Yus," answered Bill, who, like most men before the mast, had never
seen a chart in his life. "I looked at ev'ry name on it, ev'ry
bloomin' one. A chart o' Africa it was, givin' the whole lot of 'em.
But your place."

"Yais?" cried the Dago. "You see 'im? An' de leetle bay under de
hills? You find it?"

"No," said Bill, "I didn't find it. It wasn't there."

"Wasn't there?" The Dago's smile was gone now; his forehead was
puckered like a child's in bewilderment, and a darker doubt at the
back of his thoughts loomed up in his troubled eyes.

"No," said the Cockney, watching him zestfully. "You got it wrong,
Dago, an' there ain't no such place. You dreamt it. Savvy? All wot
you bin tell in' us about the town an' the bay an' the way you used
to take it easy there all that's just a bloomin' lie. See?"

The Dago's face was white and his lips trembled. He tried to smile.

"Not there," he repeated. "It is de joke, not? You fool me, Bill,
yais?"

Bill shook his head. "I wouldn't fool yer abaht a thing like that,"
he declared sturdily. "There ain't no such place, Dago. It's just one
o' yer fancies, yer know."

In those three years of wandering there had been dark hours turbulent
with pain, hours when his vision, his hope, his memory had not
availed to uplift him, and he had known the terror of a doubt lest
the whole of it should, after all, be but a creation of his
yearnings, a mirage of his desires. Everywhere me