26 JUNGLE PEACE 



route in the Far East and settled to her new 

 routine. 



So even the ship beneath me was not what 

 she had seemed, and yet her deceit and illu- 

 sion were harmless, wholly without guile, and 

 I began to wonder whether my unfriendly 

 thoughts of the great city behind me were quite 

 fair. 



The carven Wodens and Briinnhildes who 

 guarded the fortunes of old Viking ships, 

 watched the icy Arctic waters forever cleft 

 beneath them and felt the sting of flying splin- 

 ters of ice; the figureheads of Gloucester mer- 

 chantmen of old, with wind blown draperies and 

 pious hands, counted the daily and monthly 

 growth of barnacles, and noted the lengthening 

 of the green fronds on the hull below. One day 

 I lay in the great arms of an anchor, beneath a 

 prosaic bow; myself the only figurehead, peering 

 gargoyle-wise over the new-painted steel. Far 

 below, in place of wooden virgin or muscled 

 Neptune, there appeared only four numbers, 2, 

 3, 4 and 25. Even these, however, yielded to 

 imagination when I remembered that the light 

 cargo which made them visible was due to the 

 need of sugar by soldiers in far distant trenches. 



