of his own brother-in-law, a surgeon, of whose death in
action he had learned during the week. Wonderful hands he had had, long
with broad shallow points, indicative of a very fine skill with the
knife. Now he was dead; and this creature here would no doubt survive
and prosper when it was all over. The captain had been thinking a good
deal during the past few days. An old friend of his, a school-master in
happier times, had suddenly descended upon him, a bronzed person in
khaki with a major's crowns on his shoulder-straps. Had a few days'
leave from the Struma front. He was not elated at his rise in rank, it
transpired, for it had simply been a process of rapid elimination. All
the senior officers had been killed; and here he was, an old gray badger
of an elderly lieutenant promoted to major. There was a lull on the
Struma, he said, his tired, refined voice concealing the irony. Very
delightful to have a few days' peace on a ship with a friend. Now he was
back on the Struma; and perhaps next time Captain Meredith got news
there would be another gap in that little staff. He stepped out on the
bridge. The anchor was coming up.

Mr. Spokesly was thinking, too, in spite of the immediate distraction of
heaving-up. It had been a week of extraordinary experiences for him. As
he leaned over the rail and looked down into the waters of the Gulf, and
noted the immense jelly-fish, like fabled amethysts, moving gently
forward to the faint rhythmic pulsing of their delicate fringes, he
began to doubt afresh his identity with the rather banal person who had
left England a couple of short months before. He found himself here now,
outwardly the same, yet within there was a readjustment of forces and
values that at times almost scared him. For he had reached a position
from which it was impossible to gauge the future. Nothing would ever be
the same again. He was frankly astonished at his own spiritual
resources. He had not known that he was capable of emotions so far
removed from a smug commonplace. Love, as he had conceived it, for
example, had been an affair of many oppressive restrictions, an affair
of ultimate respectability and middle-aged affection. Oh, dear, no! It
appeared to be a different thing entirely. He discovered that once one
was thoroughly saturated with it, one stepped out of all those ideas as
out of a suit of worn and uncomfortable clothing. Indeed, one had no
need of ideas at all. One proceeded through a series of tra