It's pretty, but more like what men who cruise for pleasure would write.
You're a sailor--have taken a sailor's chances. Why don't you write like
a sailor? It is a sad sea, a terrible sea, despite all your beautiful
blue Trades. Why don't you write of the tragic sea?"

"I knew that some time you would say something like that. I've seen it
in your eyes before."

"You have?"

"Why, many times. And so, here." And from between the pages of Captain
Blaise's book of verse I drew another sheet. At that time I would have
been ashamed to let anybody else see these things, but I did not mind
her. "Here," I said, "is one I felt. One night in the Caribbean we were
caught in a tornado, and we thought--Captain Blaise said afterward he
thought so too--that we had stood our last watch. And at the height of
it--we could do nothing but stand by--one of the crew, a young fellow--I
was only sixteen years old myself then--said to me, 'Oh, Master Guy,
what will she say when she hears?' He meant his young wife. He'd been
married just before we put out, and she'd come down to the ship to see
him off. So listen:

"'The spray, most-like, was in my eyes,
He waved his hand to me--
The wind it blew a gale that day
When he sailed out to sea.'"

"Ah-h!" She leaned closer.