lanced himself on the bow of his surf-boat and tugged and
strained until he gained the ladder-bottom. He stood there, recovering
his breath, for a moment or two, peering up towards the inhospitable
silence above him. But still he saw no sign of life. No word or
challenge was flung down at him. Then, after a moment's thought, he
lay flat on the grill and deliberately pushed the surf-boat off into
the darkness. He wanted no more of it. He knew, now, there could be
no going back.

He climbed cautiously up the slowly swaying steps, standing for a
puzzled moment at the top and peering about him. Then he crept along
the deserted deck, where a month of utter idleness, apparently, had
left discipline relaxed. He shied away from the lights, here and
there, that dazzled his eyes after his long hours of darkness. With an
instinct not unlike that which drives the hiding wharf-rat into the
deepest corner at hand, he made his way down through the body of the
ship. He shambled and skulked his way down, a hatless and ragged and
uncouth figure, wandering on along gloomy gangways and corridors until
he found himself on the threshold of the engine-room itself.

He was about to back out of this entrance and strike still deeper when
he found himself confronted by an engineer smoking a short brier-root
pipe. The pale blue eyes of this sandy-headed engineer were wide with
wonder, startled and incredulous wonder, as they stared at the ragged
figure in the doorway.

"Where in the name o' God did _you_ come from?" demanded the man with
the brier-root pipe.

"I came out from Guayaquil," answered Blake, reaching searchingly down
in his wet pocket. "And I can't go back."

The sandy-headed man backed away.

"From the fever camps?"

Blake could afford to smile at the movement.

"Don't worry--there 's no fever 'round me. _That 's_ what I 've been
through!" And he showed the bullet-holes through his tattered
coat-cloth.

"How'd you get here?"

"Rowed out in a surf-boat--and I can't go back!"

The sandy-headed engineer continued to stare at the uncouth figure in
front of him, to stare at it with vague and impersonal wonder. And in
facing that sandy-headed stranger, Blake knew, he was facing a judge
whose decision was to be of vast moment in his future destiny, whose
word, perhaps, was to decide on the success or failure of much
wandering about the earth.

"I can't go back!" repeated Blake, as he reached out and dropped a