12 



Late Noon in the West 



^American IIV) 



THE John W. Nathan rose and fell with creaking yards and 

 what appeared to be enormous complacency upon the endless, 

 glassy, pale-blue swell that heaved in from the Pacific. Apart from 

 her gently rocking yardarms and a few odd lines that dangled list- 

 lessly from her rail, she was spick and span and her canvas neatly 

 furled. There was even a glaring white awning stretched amidships 

 between the try-works and her poop, and two people were lolling 

 in hammocks slung over the transom. Though her stubby lines and 

 dull-black sides proclaimed her to be a whaler, her general appear- 

 ance and behavior would better have suited a sultan's yacht. She 

 wasn't even anchored. 



A ridiculously small dinghy, in build most oddly like the big ship 

 herself without her spars, languished at the end of a light line aft, 

 and performed its own lesser dance upon the oily swell. It was early 

 morning and although it was the first of December, the heat was 

 oppressive, the air completely unmoving, and the sunlight so in- 

 tensely shining despite a general haziness that it hurt the eyeballs to 



