a narrow road led down a very steep
hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go
down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.

The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.

One day, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ sailed away from that
wharf, on a voyage to India. And she sailed down the wide river and out
into the great ocean and on and on until the land was only a dim blue
streak on the horizon; and farther on, and the land sank out of sight,
and there was nothing to be seen, wherever Captain Solomon looked, but
that great, big water, that was so blue and that danced and sparkled in
the sunshine. For it was a beautiful afternoon and there was just a
gentle wind blowing, so that the _Industry_ had every bit of sail set
that could be set: mainsail and foresail and spanker, main-topsail, and
fore-topsail, main-topgallantsail and fore-topgallantsail and main-royal
and fore-royal and main-skysail and fore-skysail and staysails and all
her jibs and a studdingsail on every yard, out on its boom. She was
sailing very fast, and she was a pretty sight, with that cloud of
canvas. She looked like a great white bird. I wish that you and I could
have seen her.

And the crew didn't have much to do, when they had got all those sails
set. They had already been divided into watches, so that every man knew
what his duty would be, and when he would have to be on deck, ready to
work, and when he could sleep. And they stood at the rail, mostly, and
they leaned on it and looked out over the water in the direction of that
little city that they were leaving behind them and that they wouldn't
see again for nearly a year. They couldn't see the little city because
it was down behind the roundness of the world; but they saw the sun,
which was almost setting. And the sun sank lower and lower until it sank
into the sea. And there were all sorts of pretty colors, in the