28 MYSTIC ISLES 



entangled in her own regal web, and sterilized by her 

 Continental caste. 



For days and nights we moved through the calm sea, 

 with hardljT^ more than the sparkling crests of the myriad 

 swelling waves to distinguish from a bounded lake these 

 mighty waters that wash the newest and oldest of lands. 

 It seemed as if all the world was only water and us. 

 The ship was as steady in her element as a plane in those 

 upper strata of the ether where the winds and clouds no 

 longer have domain. The company in a week had 

 found themselves, and divided into groups in which each 

 sought protection from boredom, ease of familiar man- 

 ners, and opportunity to talk or to listen. 



Often when all had left the deck I sat alone in the 

 passage before the surgeon's cabin to drink in the cool- 

 ness of the dark, and to wonder at the problem of life. 

 If a man had not his dream, what could life give him? 

 In his heart he might know by experience that it never 

 could come true, but without it, false as it might be, he 

 was without consolation. 



One night, the equator behind, I saw the Southern 

 Cross for the first time on the voyage, its glittering crux, 

 with the alpha and beta Centaur stars, signaling to me 

 that I was beyond the dispensation of the cold and con- 

 stant north star, and in the realm of warmth and ever- 

 changing beauty. 



Tahiti, the second Sunday out, was a day off. I 

 arose Monday with a feeling of buoyancy and expec- 

 tancy that grew with the morning. I was as one who 

 looks to find soon in reality the ideal on earth his fancy 

 has created. The day became older, and the noontide 

 passed. I had gone forward upon the forecastle head 



