sides. The sea, he observed, was not really blue--not at any rate
the blue he had supposed. Where it seethed flatly along the hull,
laced with swirls of milky foam, it was almost black. Farther
away, it was green, or darkly violet. A ladder led to the top of
the charthouse, and from this commanding height the whole body of
the ship lay below him. How alive she seemed, how full of
personality! The strong funnels, the tall masts that moved so
delicately against the pale open sky, the distant stern that now
dipped low in a comfortable hollow, and now soared and threshed
onward with a swimming thrust, the whole vital organism spoke to
the eye and the imagination. In the centre of this vast circle
she moved, royal and serene. She was more beautiful than the
element she rode on, for perhaps there was something meaningless
in that pure vacant round of sea and sky. Once its immense azure
was grasped and noted, it brought nothing to the mind. Reason was
indignant to conceive it, sloping endlessly away.

The placid, beautifully planned routine of shipboard passed on
its accustomed course, and he began to suspect that his
staff-captaincy was a sinecure. Down below he could see the
passengers briskly promenading, or drowsing under their rugs. On
the hurricane deck, aft, a sailor was chalking a shuffleboard
court. It occurred to him that all this might become monotonous
unless he found some actual part in it. Just then Captain Scottie
appeared on the bridge, took a quick look round, and joined him
on top of the charthouse.

"Good morning!" he said. "You won't think me rude if you don't
see much of me? Thinking about those ideas of yours, I have come
upon some rather puzzling stuff. I must work the whole thing out