ow
returning in vast numbers ready for their annual domestic
arrangements.

Our Sundays we had mostly spent in resting, or in fishing. There were
many deep sea fish to be had, of great palatability, but small
gameness; they came like so many leaden weights. A few of us had
climbed some of the hills in a half-hearted curiosity, but from their
summits saw nothing to tempt weariness. Practically we knew nothing
beyond the mile or so of beach on which we lived.

Captain Selover had made a habit of coming ashore at least once during
the day. He had contented himself with standing aloof, but I took
pains to seem to confer with him, so that the men might suppose that
I, as mate, was engaged in carrying out his directions. The dread of
him was my most potent influence over them.

During the last few days of our wrecking, Captain Selover had omitted
his daily visit. The fact made me uneasy, so that at my first
opportunity I sculled myself out to the schooner. I found him,
moist-eyed as usual, leaning against the mainmast doing nothing.

"We've finished, sir," said I.

He looked at me.

"Will you come ashore and have a look, sir?" I inquired.

"I ain't going ashore again," he muttered thickly.

"What!" I cried.

"I ain't going ashore again," he repeated obstinately, "and that's
all there is to it. It's too much of a strain on any man. Suit yourself.
You run them. I shipped as captain of a vessel. I'm no dock walloper.
I won't _do_ it--for no man!"

I gasped with dismay at the man's complete moral collapse. It seemed
incredible. I caught myself wondering whether he would recover tone
were he again to put to sea.

"My God, man, but you _must_!" I cried at last.

"I won't, and that's flat," said he, and turned deliberately on his
heel and disappeared in the cabin.

I went ashore thoughtful and a little scared. But on reflection I
regained a great part of my ease of mind. You see, I had been with
these men now eight months, during which they had been as orderly as
so many primary schoolboys. They had worked hard, without grumbling,
and had even approached a sort of friendliness about the camp fire.
My first impression was overlaid. As I looked back on the voyage, with
what I took to be a clearer vision, I could not but admit that the
incidents were in themselves trivial enough--a natural excitement by
a superstitious negro, a little tall talk that meant nothing. It must
have been the glamour of the adventure tha