after eleven. There were many laws
on the ship's statute book of course; but so far as I could see, this and
one other were the only ones that were rigidly enforced. The captain
explained that he enforced this one because his own cabin adjoined the
smoking-room, and the smell of tobacco smoke made him sick. I did not
see how our smoke could reach him, for the smoking-room and his cabin
were on the upper deck, targets for all the winds that blew; and besides
there was no crack of communication between them, no opening of any sort
in the solid intervening bulkhead. Still, to a delicate stomach even
imaginary smoke can convey damage.

The captain, with his gentle nature, his polish, his sweetness, his moral
and verbal purity, seemed pathetically out of place in his rude and
autocratic vocation. It seemed another instance of the irony of fate.

He was going home under a cloud. The passengers knew about his trouble,
and were sorry for him. Approaching Vancouver through a narrow and
difficult passage densely befogged with smoke from the forest fires, he
had had the ill-luck to lose his bearings and get his ship on the rocks.
A matter like this would rank merely as an error with you and me; it
ranks as a crime with the directors of steamship companies. The captain
had been tried by the Admiralty Court at Vancouver, and its verdict had
acquitted him of blame. But that was insufficient comfort. A sterner
court would examine the case in Sydney--the Court of Directors, the lords
of a company in whose ships the captain had served as mate a number of
years. This was his first voyage as captain.

The officers of our ship were hearty and companionable young men, and
they entered into the general amusements and helped the passengers pass
the time. Voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are but pleasure
excursions for all hands. Our purser was a young Scotchman who was
equipped with a grit that was remarkable. He was an invalid, and looked
it, as far as his body was concerned, but illness could not subdue his
spirit. He was full of life, and had a gay and capable tongue. To all
appearances he was a sick man without being aware of it, for he did not
talk about his ailments, and his bearing and conduct were those of a
person in robust health; yet he was the prey, at intervals, of ghastly
sieges of pain in his heart. These lasted many hours, and while the
attack continued he could neither sit nor lie. In one instance