"Because I have to," he answered, with a wistful smile. "You know sailors are often seasick, but they go aloft just the same and work—because they have to. You could do it yourself if you had to. And yet," he added, half shutting his eyes, "I've many a time been so bad when we've tossed and tossed for days and nights on the watch for vessels that I've come pretty near to dropping quietly overboard and ending it."
This he said without any special emphasis, yet one could see that it was true.
"Why don't you give up the life?" I suggested.
"Perhaps I would," said he, "if I could do as well at anything else. Besides—"
Then came the queerest reason. His father, it seems, a pilot before him, had suffered from seasickness for thirty-seven years, and then for thirty years more had been quite free from it. "Now," said Breed, "I've been a pilot for twenty-two years, so I figure if I stick to it fifteen years more I may be like my father after that, and have no more trouble."
Think of that for a scheme of life!
Presently another pilot joined us, and set forth a remarkable experience. "I was taking the steamer Lahn once," said he, "through a heavy fog, and the captain and I were both on the bridge, anxious to locate the light-ship. You know she lies eight miles off the Hook, and gives incoming vessels their first bearings for the channel. Of course we didn't expect to see her light—you couldn't see anything in such weather—but we listened for her fog-horn. How we did listen! And presently we heard it. You get accustomed to judging distances over water by the sound, and I put that light-ship at five miles away, or thereabouts, and I wasn't far wrong. Well, we headed straight for it, and heard the fog-horn all the time for about a mile. Then it suddenly stopped.
"'Hullo!' said I. 'What's up?'
"'Confound those light-ship people,' growled the captain. 'I'll make complaint against them for stopping their horn.'
"'Wait a little,' said I, and kept listening, listening for the horn to blow again, and all the time we were running nearer to the shoal. Pretty soon we slowed down, and went on a couple of miles, then another mile. It seemed as if we must have reached the light-ship, and the captain was in a state of mind.