The Shadow-Line Read Free Page A

benevolent, heavy-uncle manner asked point blank:
    â€œWhy did you throw up your berth?”
    I became angry all of a sudden; for you can understand how exasperating such a question was to a man who didn’t know. I said to myself that I ought to shut up that moralist; and to him aloud I said with challenging politeness:
    â€œWhy . . . ? Do you disapprove?”
    He was too disconcerted to do more than mutter confusedly: “I! . . . In a general way . . .” and then gave me up. But he retired in good order, under the cover of a heavily humorous remark that he, too, was getting soft, and that this was his time for taking his little siesta—when he was on shore. “Very bad habit. Very bad habit.”
    There was a simplicity in the man which would have disarmed a touchiness even more youthful than mine. So when next day at tiffin he bent his head toward me and said that he had met my late captain last evening, adding in an undertone: “He’s very sorry you left. He had never had a mate that suited him so well,” I answered him earnestly, without any affectation, that I certainly hadn’t been so comfortable in any ship or with any commander in all my sea-going days.
    â€œWell—then,” he murmured.
    â€œHaven’t you heard, Captain Giles, that I intend to go home?”
    â€œYes,” he said benevolently. “I have heard that sort of thing so often before.”
    â€œWhat of that?” I cried. I thought he was the most dull, unimaginative man I had ever met. I don’t know what more I would have said, but the much-belated Hamilton came in just then and took his usual seat. So I dropped into a mumble.
    â€œAnyhow, you shall see it done this time.”
    Hamilton, beautifully shaved, gave Captain Giles a curt nod, but didn’t even condescend to raise his eyebrows at me; and when he spoke it was only to tell the chief steward that the food on his plate wasn’t fit to be set before a gentleman. The individual addressed seemed much too unhappy to groan. He cast his eyes up to the punkah and that was all.
    Captain Giles and I got up from the table, and the stranger next to Hamilton followed our example, manoeuvring himself to his feet with difficulty. He, poor fellow, not because he was hungry but I verily believe only to recover his self-respect, had tried to put some of that unworthy food into his mouth. But after dropping his fork twice and generally making a failure of it, he had sat still with an air of intense mortification combined with a ghastly glazed stare. Both Giles and I had avoided looking his way at table.
    On the verandah he stopped short on purpose to address to us anxiously a long remark which I failed to understand completely. It sounded like some horrible unknown language. But when Captain Giles, after only an instant for reflection, assured him with homely friendliness, “Aye, to be sure. You are right there,” he appeared very much gratified indeed, and went away (pretty straight, too) to seek a distant long chair.
    â€œWhat was he trying to say?” I asked with disgust.
    â€œI don’t know. Mustn’t be down too much on a fellow. He’s feeling pretty wretched, you may be sure; and tomorrow he’ll feel worse yet.”
    Judging by the man’s appearance it seemed impossible. I wondered what sort of complicated debauch had reduced him to that unspeakable condition. Captain Giles’s benevolence was spoiled by a curious air of complacency which I disliked. I said with a little laugh:
    â€œWell, he will have you to look after him.” He made a deprecatory gesture, sat down, and took up a paper. I did the same. The papers were old and uninteresting, filled up mostly with dreary stereotyped descriptions of Queen Victoria’s first jubilee celebrations. Probably we should have quickly fallen into a tropical afternoon doze if it had not been for Hamilton’s voice raised in the dining room. He was