He stood at the end of the bridge, staring down at the grey water. What should he do now? While he struggled with himself, his eyes rose slowly, resting on a hulk that lay at anchor close alongside, between the steamer and the hills of Staten Island. For a moment he regarded her with a dazed and absent concern, trying to fathom the significance of half-awakened sensations. Then, with a suddenness that stopped his throat, his heart gave a great leap of recognition. Neither coal dust nor dismantlement could hide those familiar lines. The _Viking_, his old ship, lay before him. A hoarse cry escaped him. Through the dreadful pall of the latter years, through bitterness, shame and inertia, burst in a blinding flood the memory and presence of other days. The shock passed instantaneously, and left him utterly changed. Facing his old ship, he became once more the man her master had been. Decision and authority returned to him, as they always did in a crisis; for they were intrinsic, in spite of life and destiny. A rowboat was passing the steamer; he hailed it sharply. "Rowboat ahoy! Come alongside, and wait there for me" He crossed the bridge with strong steps, stood before the captain, gazed at him steadily, until the eyes of the other fell. "I’ll leave your dirty tramp immediately, sir. You can keep my wages—I don’t want them. Take them and buy a book on seamanship. You’ll need it the next time you get in shoal water" "You insolent old devil...!" "Don’t touch me!" The old man’s voice was level and hard; his hands swung at his sides. He advanced threateningly. "You didn’t dare touch me at sea; don’t do it now. I..." Speechlessness overcame him. Too much: it could never be put into words. "My God!" he murmured, turning away "I was master of a ship before he was born" Ten minutes later, seated in the rowboat with all his worldly belongings stacked around him, he directed the boatman to row him aboard the _Viking_. As they passed under her stern, he looked up at the well-remembered letters. They were dim now; time and weather had worn off the gilt. An afternoon in Hong Kong harbour came back to him; he recalled it vividly. He had been coming off from shore in his sampan, full of news; the ship had been chartered for home. Grace would be delighted. Approaching the ship, he had overhauled her with a critical eye, and found no blemish in her; then, as they rounded the stern, had looked up at these same letters. His Frankie had called from the rail, running forward to meet him at the gangway. Time and weather—the awful dimming of life. He bowed his head in his hands, and wept like a child. *VI*