THE DREAM SHIP 



17 



Chapter II 



''Tomorrow," said 

 Steve, mate of the 

 D r c a m Ship, "we 

 ought to raise Tower 

 Island." 



"Good," said I. with 

 an indifference born 

 of confidence in our 

 navigating officer. 



"Splendid!" said 

 Peter, who. owing to 

 a professed and pre- 

 ferred ignorance of 

 navigation, had not 

 ceased to look upon 

 the determination of 

 a ship's position at 

 sea as a species of 

 conjuring trick. 



After a seven-thou- 

 sand-mile sail, we 

 were approaching the 

 ash-heap of the world. 



At the time we had 

 no notion that it was 

 an ash-heap, but you 

 shall judge. 



Throughout that 

 night we took our ap- 

 pointed four - hour, 

 single-handed watch ; 

 slept our four hours, 

 as we had come me- 

 chanically so to do 

 during the past four 

 months, and went on 

 deck at dawn to see 

 Tower Island. 



It was not there. 



Photograph by Ralph Stock 



THE COOK'S JOB OX THE "DREAM SHIP*' 



There was no system of castes on the Dream SJiip. Master, mate, 

 and "crew" took their turns, one week at a time, over the Primus 

 stove in the tiny nine-bv-nve fo'castle. 



A EOST ISLAND 



Steve, who was at the tiller, looked 

 vaguely troubled, but ottered no com- 

 ment; neither did we. "Leave a man to 

 his job" had become our watchword 

 through many vicissitudes. But when 

 night followed day with customary in- 

 exorableness, but without producing any- 

 thing more tangible than the same empty 

 expanse of ocean, Steve was constrained 

 to mutter, a sure preliminary to coherent 

 speech. 



"One of three things has happened," 

 he announced : "the chronometer's srot the 



jim-jams, the chart's wrong, or the blink- 

 ing island has foundered." 



As skipper of the Dream Ship, it de- 

 volved upon me to verify these surprising 

 statements, which after a superhuman 

 struggle (being probably the worst mathe- 

 matician on earth) I did. 



By our respective observations and 

 subsequent calculations, the ship's posi- 

 tion proved identical. According to in- 

 struments, we were at that moment plumb 

 in the middle of Tower Island. It was 

 thoughtless of it to have evaporated at 

 the very moment when we so sorely 

 needed it as a landmark. We said so in 



