ointed south. I made signs that I would go with him, and he
laughed at first, but then, being short of men, took me to help work
the ship. So I came to talk after their manner, and to heave on ropes,
and to reef the stiff sails in sudden squalls, and to take my turn at
the wheel. But it was not strange, for the blood of my fathers was the
blood of the men of the sea.

'I had thought it an easy task to find him I sought, once I got among
his own people; and when we raised the land one day, and passed between
a gateway of the sea to a port, I looked for perhaps as many schooners
as there were fingers to my hands. But the ships lay against the
wharves for miles, packed like so many little fish; and when I went
among them to ask for a man with the mane of a sea lion, they laughed,
and answered me in the tongues of many peoples. And I found that they
hailed from the uttermost parts of the earth.

'And I went into the city to look upon the face of every man. But they
were like the cod when they run thick on the banks, and I could not
count them. And the noise smote upon me till I could not hear, and my
head was dizzy with much movement. So I went on and on, through the
lands which sang in the warm sunshine; where the harvests lay rich on
the plains; and where great cities were fat with men that lived like
women, with false words in their mouths and their hearts black with the
lust of gold. And all the while my people of Akatan hunted and fished,
and were happy in the thought that the world was small.

'But the look in the eyes of Unga coming home from the fishing was with
me always, and I knew I would find her when the time was met. She
walked down quiet lanes in the dusk of the evening, or led me chases
across the thick fields wet with the morning dew, and there was a
promise in her eyes such as only the woman Unga could give.

'So I wandered through a thousand cities. Some were gentle and gave me
food, and others laughed, and still others cursed; but I kept my tongue
between my teeth, and went strange ways and saw strange sights.
Sometimes I, who was a chief and the son of a chief, toiled for
men--men rough of speech and hard as iron, who wrung gold from the
sweat and sorrow of their fellow men. Yet no word did I get of my quest
till I came back to the sea like a homing seal to the rookeries.

'But this was at another port, in another country which lay to the
north. And there I heard dim tales of the yellow-haired sea w