open sea, about two hundred
and fifty miles from Port Darwin. There wasn't a breath of air. The sea
was like glass; the sun was drawing turpentine out of every inch of
the 'Dancing Kate'. The world was one wild blister. There wasn't a
comfortable spot in the craft, and all round us was that staring,
oily sea. It was too hot to smoke, and I used to make a Sede boy do my
smoking for me. I got the benefit of the smell without any work. I was
lying under the droop of a dingey, making the Sede boy call on all his
gods for wind, with interludes of smoke, when he chucked his deities and
tobacco, and, pointing, shouted, 'Man! man!'

"I snatched a spy-glass. Sure enough, there was a boat on the water.
It was moving ever so slowly. It seemed to stop, and we saw something
lifted and waved, and then all was still again. I got a boat's crew
together, and away we went in that deadly smother. An hour's row and we
got within hail of the derelict--as one of the crew said, 'feelin' as
if the immortal life was jerked out of us.' The dingey lay there on the
glassy surface, not a sign of life about her. Yet I had, as I said, seen
something waved. The water didn't even lap its sides. It was ghostly, I
can tell you. Our oars licked the water; they didn't attack it. Now, I'm
going to tell you something, Marmion, that'll make you laugh. I don't
think I've got any poetry in me, but just then I thought of some verses
I learned when I was a little cove at Wellington--a devilishly weird
thing. It came to me at that moment like a word in my ear. It made me
feel awkward for a second. All sailors are superstitious, you know. I'm
superstitious about this ship. Never mind; I'll tell you the verses, to
show you what a queer thing memory is. The thing was called 'No Man's
Sea':

"'The days are dead in the No Man's Sea,
And God has left it alone;
The angels cover their heads and flee,
And the wild four winds have flown.

"'There's never a ripple upon the tide,
There's never a word or sound;
But over the waste the white wraiths glide,
To look for the souls of the drowned.

"'The No Man's Sea is a gaol of souls,
And its gate is a burning sun,
And deep beneath it a great bell tolls
For a death that never is done.

"'Alas! for any that comes anear,
That lies on its moveless breast;
The grumbling water shall be his bier,