The ship passed swiftly from the harbour heads. The tugboat let go her towline. Some of the men went aloft, to loose sail. Talking in low voices, others waited by sheet and halyard; ready to hoist when the mate’s order came. Jukes stood apart, detached, solitary, brooding. He looked like a bear lately released from an unclean cage, and still uncertain of its freedom. The mate called-- “Hoist away, main tops’l!” The men grasped the halyards and lay back, setting their weight upon them. Straining to raise the heavy sail, they failed. They tried, and failed again. “You there! Lend a hand here!” called the mate to Jukes. The men waited while Jukes slowly approached. As he laid hold on the rope he seemed to shake himself. He drew a long deep breath. He reached up, higher and higher. His great chest expanded. The mate called-- “All together, now!--_Lay back!_” The tackle rattled noisily through its three-fold blocks. The sail slid, threshing and filling, to its masthead. “Bully boy!” said the mate. A sailor repeated-- “Bully boy!” Jukes remained silent, sombre, brow-beclouded. While sail on sail was spread, the crew all hauling to his leadership, he took no notice of anyone or anything. He paid no heed at all to their admiring comments. The shore line faded astern. The day passed. The sun sank. Night fell. The sailors sat in the forecastle. “’Ow long was you ashore?” asked one. “Three days. How long was you?” came the reply. “I come in the same day as you, then. I been three days ashore.” “We was five months at sea,” said the other, “three days in port, an’ I don’t know nothin’ about ’em.” The dozen sailors discussed their stays in port. Not one of them had been ashore over five days. Each had accepted a drink from the boarding master’s bottle. Between then and now no one of them knew aught of what had taken place. “We was two hundred days on the passage out,” said one. “We was posted missin’. Four days in port, an’ back to sea agin!” They were from half a dozen different ships. “How long was you ashore?” asked one, turning to Jukes. Jukes seemed not to hear him. “He don’t know,” laughed one. “We don’t none of us know much, or we’d not be here,” another grumbled. “After this v’yage I quits the sea,” another asserted. “Me, too,” another. “Yuss!--You will!” chuckled a third. “I’ll do wot I please,” retorted the other. “Same as you always ’ave! Me, too,” another said. “Haw, haw, haw!” Turning to Jukes the last speaker asked-- “Wot will you do w’en she gits in, ol’ matey?”