Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (304 page)

Again
Abel
Keeling
had
moved
as
a
sleep-walker
moves.
He
had raised
himself
up
by
the
belfry
timbers,
and
Bligh
had
sunk
in
a
heap on
the
deck.
Abel
Keeling's
movement
overturned
the
pipkin,
which raced
the
little
trickle
of
its
contents
down
the
deck
and
lodged where
the
still
and
brimming
sea
made,
as
it
were,
a
chain
with
the carved
balustrade
of
the
quarter-deck—one
link
a
still
gleaming
edge, then
a
dark
baluster,
and
then
another
gleaming
link.
For
one
moment
only
Abel
Keeling
found
himself
noticing
that
that
which
had driven
Bligh
aft
had
been
the
rising
of
the
water
in
the
waist
as
the galleon
settled
by
the
head—the
waist
was
now
entirely
submerged; then
once
more
he
was
absorbed
in
his
dream,
its
voices,
and
its
shape in
the
mist,
which
had
again
taken
the
form
of
a
pyramid
before
his eyeballs.

"Of
course,"
a
voice
seemed
to
be
complaining
anew,
and
still through
that
confused
dinning
in
Abel
Keeling's
ears,
"we
can't
turn a
four-inch
on
it.
.
.
.
And,
of
course,
Ward,
J
don't
believe
in
'em. D'you
hear,
Ward?
I don't
believe
in
'em,
I
say.
.
.
.
Shall
we call
down
to
old
A.B.?
This
might
interest
His
Scientific
Skipper-ship.
.
.
."

"Oh,
lower
a
boat
and
pull
out
to
it—into
it
—over
it—through
it
-----
"

"Look
at
our
chaps
crowded
on
the
barbette
yonder.
They
've
seen it.
Better not give an
order
you
know
won't he obeyed. . .
."

Abel
Keeling,
cramped
against
the
antique
belfry,
had
begun
to
find his
dream
interesting.
For,
though
he
did
not
know
her
build,
that mirage
was
in
the
shape
of
a
ship.
No
doubt
it
was
projected
from
his brooding
on
ships
of
half
an
hour
before;
and
that
was
odd.
.
.
.
But perhaps,
after
all,
it
was
not
very
odd.
He
knew
that
she
did
not
really exist;
only
the
appearance
of
her
existed;
but
things
had
to
exist
like that
before
they
really
existed.
Before
the
Mary
of
the
Tower
had
existed
she
had
been
a
shape
in
some
man's
imagination;
before
that, some
dreamer
had
dreamed
the
form
of
a
ship
with
oars;
and
before that,
far
away
in
the
dawn
and
infancy
of
the
world,
some
seer
had seen
in
a
vision
the
raft
before
man
had
ventured
to
push
out
over
the water
on
his
two
planks.
And
since
this
shape
that
rode
before
Abel Keeling's
eyes
was
a
shape
in
his,
Abel
Keeling's
dream,
he,
Abel
Keeling,
was
the
master
of
it.
His
own
brooding
brain
had
contrived
her, and
she
was
launched
upon
the
illimitable
ocean
of
his
own mind.
.
.
.

"And
I
will
not
unmindful
be Of
this,
My
cov'nant,
passed Twixt
Me
and
you
and
every
flesh Whiles
that
the
world
should
last,"