There was much that puzzled me aboard-ship--the
discontent of the second mate, the perversity of the man Kipping (others
besides myself had seen that wink), and a certain undercurrent of
pessimism. But although I was separated a long, long way from my old
friends in the cabin, I felt that in Bill Hayden I had found a friend of a
sort; then, as I began my first real watch on deck at sea, I fell to
thinking of my sister and Roger Hamlin.
CHAPTER III
THE MAN OUTSIDE THE GALLEY
Strange events happened in our first month at sea--events so subtle as
perhaps to seem an unimportant part of this narrative of a strange voyage,
yet really as necessary to the foundation of the story as the single bricks
and the single dabs of mortar at the base of a tall chimney are necessary
to the completed structure. I later had cause to remember each trivial
incident as if it had been written in letters of fire.
In the first dog watch one afternoon, when we were a few days out of port,
I was sitting with my back against the forward deck-house, practising
splices and knots with a bit of rope that I had saved for the purpose. I
was only a couple of feet from the corner, so of course I heard what was
going on just out of sight.
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