This was no larger ship than the Wastrel, but when one went to his berth at night it was with confidence that his sleep would not be interrupted by the sudden necessity of getting up to die. She had carried a cargo of trade stuffs south and was returning to Singapore by way of Brisbane, laden with copra and pearl shell. Her direction lay westerly while I wished to go east, but that was secondary. At the Australian port, I could reship. Indeed, I was told our course might shortly cross that of a regular line of steamers between Brisbane and Honolulu. For a few days it was satisfying enough to pick up the lost ends of the world's stale news. While I had been marking time the world had been marching; a hundred paragraphs had been lived into history.
On the fourth day a slender thread of smoke rose over the western horizon which grew into a clean-painted and white-cabined steamer. As the gap closed white-clad men and even women stood crisply out against the deck-rail. Then with much signaling from the halyards the two vessels had converse of which I was the subject, and I with my chest went over the side of the Gretchen. I told the steamer's purser as much of my story as I had told on the Gretchen, and when that evening I appeared at the captain's table transformed by bathing in a real tub and submission to a real razor in the hands of a real barber, it was to find that my story had traveled forward and aft.
St. Paul was a very good man. He had piety and fervor, but also in a superior and godly fashion he was a man of the world. Perhaps he gained a firmer grip on his following by reason of his ability to say to the youth of his generation, "I have been twice stoned and thrice shipwrecked." I had been only once shipwrecked, yet a ready-made audience awaited entertainment.
It was on the second afternoon that Captain Keller appeared in the smoke-room. He was a man of about my own build and almost as bronzed, but fair haired and his carriage proclaimed the soldier before he introduced himself. I was idly enjoying the comfort of wicker chairs and windows which framed white decks and dancing seas. The few other occupants of the place were lounging about in pongee and linen, chatting lazily of those things which make talk among men coming out of the East: tribal risings in Java, the late race-meet in Melbourne. The military-looking young man dropped into a seat at my table and signaled to the spotless Jap, who officiated as smoking-room steward.
"Left you alone yesterday," he began by way of introduction. "I saw you didn't relish being treated like the newest and strangest animal in captivity. I guess they're accustomed to you now. What will you have?"
"Brandy and soda," I decided; then I added, "Perhaps after being rescued I ought to make myself more volatile and amusing, but the fact is I'm readjusting. Did you ever happen to spend six months on an undiscovered, cannibal island?"
He shook his head and laughed with a pleasant gleam of strong, regular teeth.
"Then," I assured him, "you don't understand the desire to sit still for a while. You don't understand the sheer wonder of a soft chair, white woodwork and the regular throb of engines and the sight of white-skinned, white-clad men and women. Look there." I held out my copper-colored forearm.
He smiled again and nodded. "I'm going back to the States," he said, "after three years in the Islands, capped with two months in India and Australia. I'm Keller of the 23rd Infantry."
He paused, then went on in a matter-of-fact way. "I've been in the jungle three months on end. I know what it means. This is my second term of Philippine service and it's the first time I've gone home quite sane. After the first three years the melancholia had me. When the transport left Manila, and I thought of the three weeks before I could see the Golden Gate, it took three good huskies to keep me from jumping overboard. It touches one here." With a finger at the temple, he paused, then added gravely: "And I know some fellows who weren't stopped in time. One must readjust slowly."