e strove to stir himself and find something to interest him. He
ventured the petty officers' mess, and was glad to get away. He talked
with a quartermaster off duty, an intelligent man who promptly prodded
him with the socialist propaganda and forced into his hands a bunch of
leaflets and pamphlets. He listened to the man expounding the
slave-morality, and as he listened, he thought languidly of his own
Nietzsche philosophy. But what was it worth, after all? He remembered
one of Nietzsche's mad utterances wherein that madman had doubted truth.
And who was to say? Perhaps Nietzsche had been right. Perhaps there was
no truth in anything, no truth in truth--no such thing as truth. But his
mind wearied quickly, and he was content to go back to his chair and
doze.

Miserable as he was on the steamer, a new misery came upon him. What
when the steamer reached Tahiti? He would have to go ashore. He would
have to order his trade-goods, to find a passage on a schooner to the
Marquesas, to do a thousand and one things that were awful to
contemplate. Whenever he steeled himself deliberately to think, he could
see the desperate peril in which he stood. In all truth, he was in the
Valley of the Shadow, and his danger lay in that he was not afraid. If
he were only afraid, he would make toward life. Being unafraid, he was
drifting deeper into the shadow. He found no delight in the old familiar
things of life. The Mariposa was now in the northeast trades, and this
wine of wind, surging against him, irritated him. He had his chair moved
to escape the embrace of this lusty comrade of old days and nights.

The day the Mariposa entered the doldrums, Martin was more miserable than
ever. He could no longer sleep. He was soaked with sleep, and perforce
he must now stay awake and endure the white glare of life. He moved
about restlessly. The air was sticky and humid, and the rain-squalls
were unrefreshing. He ached with life. He walked around the deck until
that hurt too much, then sat in his chair until he was compelled to walk
again. He forced himself at last to finish the magazine, and from the
steamer library he culled several volumes of poetry. But they could not
hold him, and once more he took to walking.

He stayed late on deck, after dinner, but that did not help him, for when
he went below, he could not sleep. This surcease from life had failed
him. It was too much. He turned on the electric light and trie