as he was not appreciated at his
true worth. It might almost be said that at times he was indifferent to
the outcome of the gigantic struggle. A horrible unrest assailed him.
The world was heaving in a death grapple with the powers of darkness and
he was as nothing in the balance.

But as he walked the forecastle-head and the _Tanganyika_ passed through
the bottle neck of Kara Burun into the wide waters of the gulf-head, he
was restored to a normal attention to the cut-and-dried duties of his
calling. There was exhilaration in the thought of foregathering once
more with Archy, of going ashore in a new port. And there would be
letters. He drew a deep breath. Ada would write. Unconsciously he
straightened up. A warm glow suffused him as he recalled her dark-gray,
adoring eyes and the deep tremble of her voice as she called him her
sailor sweetheart. After all, he was that. He was understood there, he
thought, and was comforted. Rung by rung he climbed up out of the dark
dank well in which he had been dwelling until, when the compressors had
been screwed up tight and the _Tanganyika_ was swinging gently on her
eighty fathom of cable, he was recapitulating the heartening words he
had last read in his "course" in the London School of Mnemonics.

_Think well of yourself and your ability_, it ran. _Get the habit of
believing in your own ambition. This is only another way of saying that
faith can move mountains. But remember that to be satisfied with what
you are is to lose grip. If you are standing still you are slipping
back. This paradox will be shown...._

* * * * *

It was some hours later, after dinner, that Captain Meredith sat at the
desk in his room looking out of the big side-scuttle at the blood-red
and purple of the western sky beyond the Vardar delta. It was such a
sunset as one may see across Lake Pontchartrain in the fall, or looking
up some aisle of the dark silent forests that fringe the swamps of the
Georgia coast. It has the opaque glamour that comes from the dense
vapours rising from a marsh, the tangible beauty of a giant curtain
rather than the far glories of miles of ambient mountain air. But
Captain Meredith was not occupied with esthetic musings. In his hand he
held a letter from the superintendent in London, and he sought
seclusion, as was his wont, in looking out towards the immense
polychrome of the sky. For the letter contained orders which might
involve him in som