"something fishy" in the affair; but of course
they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the
captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea,
and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about
the nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From
the way he narrated that part I was at liberty to infer he was partly
stunned by the discovery he had made--the discovery about himself--and
no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who
was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must
understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure;
and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced
when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in
which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and
it is difficult to imagine.

'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder?
But no doubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore
a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six or
seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little.
Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in addition to his other
shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the
verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of his place of
sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on the
quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and
silent, like a ghost without a home to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken
three words to a living soul in all that time," he said, making me very
sorry for him; and directly he added, "One of these fellows would have
been sure to blurt out something I had made up my mind not to put up
with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I was too--too . . . I
had no heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarked
cheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And yet I swear to you I felt
it bulge under my hand." "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will
stand sometimes," I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out
and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times. You could not
conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up;
he slapped his thigh. "Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance
missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last "missed" resembled a
c