r-surfed
iron coast he sought to find.

Coming back to the poop I was caught by the surprised Mr. Mellaire.

"Thought you were asleep, sir," he chided.

"I'm too restless," I explained. "I've read until my eyes are tired, and
now I'm trying to get chilled so that I can fall asleep while warming up
in my blankets."

"I envy you, sir," he answered. "Think of it! So much of all night in
that you cannot sleep. Some day, if ever I make a lucky strike, I shall
make a voyage like this as a passenger, and have all watches below. Think
of it! All blessed watches below! And I shall, like you, sir, bring a
Jap servant along, and I'll make him call me at every changing of the
watches, so that, wide awake, I can appreciate my good fortune in the
several minutes before I roll over and go to sleep again."

We laughed good night to each other. Another peep into the chart-room
showed me Captain West sleeping as before. He had not moved in general,
though all his body moved with every roll and fling of the ship. Below,
Margaret's light still burned, but a peep showed her asleep, her book
fallen from her hands just as was the so frequent case with my books.

And I wondered. Half the souls of us on the _Elsinore_ slept. The
Samurai slept. Yet the old first mate, who should have slept, kept a
bitter watch on the for'ard-house. Was his anxiety right? Could it be
right? Or was it the crankiness of ultimate age? Were we drifting and
leewaying to destruction? Or was it merely an old man being struck down
by senility in the midst of his life-task?

Too wide awake to think of sleeping, I ensconced myself with _The Mirror
of the Sea_ at the dining-table. Nor did I remove aught of my storm-gear
save the soggy mittens, which I wrung out and hung to dry by the stove.
Four bells struck, and six bells, and Mr. Pike had not returned below. At
eight bells, with the changing of the watches, it came upon me what a
night of hardship the old mate was enduring. Eight to twelve had been
his own watch on deck. He had now completed the four hours of the second
mate's watch and was beginning his own watch, which would last till eight
in the morning--twelve consecutive hours in a Cape Horn gale with the
mercury at freezing.

Next--for I had dozed--I heard loud cries above my head that were
repeated along the poop. I did not know till afterwards that it was Mr.
Pike's command to hard-up the helm, passed along from for'ard by the men