th a boat-hook for a yard. She was certainly over-masted, but I had
the satisfaction of knowing that with the wind aft I could beat the
other two. I had to wait for them. Then we all had a look at the
captain's chart, and, after a sociable meal of hard bread and water, got
our last instructions. These were simple: steer north, and keep together
as much as possible. 'Be careful with that jury rig, Marlow,' said the
captain; and Mahon, as I sailed proudly past his boat, wrinkled his
curved nose and hailed, 'You will sail that ship of yours under water,
if you don't look out, young fellow.' He was a malicious old man--and
may the deep sea where he sleeps now rock him gently, rock him tenderly
to the end of time!

"Before sunset a thick rain-squall passed over the two boats, which were
far astern, and that was the last I saw of them for a time. Next day I
sat steering my cockle-shell--my first command--with nothing but water
and sky around me. I did sight in the afternoon the upper sails of a
ship far away, but said nothing, and my men did not notice her. You see
I was afraid she might be homeward bound, and I had no mind to turn back
from the portals of the East. I was steering for Java--another blessed
name--like Bankok, you know. I steered many days.

"I need not tell you what it is to be knocking about in an open boat. I
remember nights and days of calm when we pulled, we pulled, and the
boat seemed to stand still, as if bewitched within the circle of the sea
horizon. I remember the heat, the deluge of rain-squalls that kept us
baling for dear life (but filled our water-cask), and I remember sixteen
hours on end with a mouth dry as a cinder and a steering-oar over the
stern to keep my first command head on to a breaking sea. I did not know
how good a man I was till then. I remember the drawn faces, the dejected
figures of my two men, and I remember my youth and the feeling that
will never come back any more--the feeling that I could last for ever,
outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that
lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort--to death; the
triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of
dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold,
grows small, and expires--and expires, too soon--before life itself.

"And this is how I see the East. I have seen its secret places and have
looked into its very soul; but now I see it always from a