With a deep sigh and a proud smile he wearily turned toward the line of cabins from whence a light step now proceeded.
His valet came forward, cap in hand. “Your Excellency, dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. Will you not come to your room, sir?”
“Very good, Jean; but I believe I shall not dress to-night. I am fatigued and I expect no one else will. Just a little touching up and a dark coat and scarf. I shall follow you.”
Musing, he turned once more to the waters which had lost their mirror-like smoothness upon entering the narrow channel. Before him rose the escarpment of Perim’s forts, with their twinkling lights; the breeze carried to his ears the bugle call from the barracks, the one discordant sound in the serene stillness of the fairy landscape.
“Gate to an ocean—England will hold it,” he muttered. “Passage to power and trade—Albion will rule it. Other nations may strive and plan, dream and scheme, but Albion takes and holds. I wonder if, when my last call comes, I shall find a Briton guarding the Pearly Gates? Well, I have done the best I could for my king and my country. I must not grudge the men who have done theirs for their queen and land—and with more glorious and happier results. The race is to the swift, the laurel to the victor, glory to the lucky! L’homme propose, Dieu dispose!”
He gave one more look round, turning in all directions, and then slowly left the deck.
The moon had risen above the haze and shone a lustrous brightness. The sky, a deep unfathomable marine, was dotted with countless blinking stars; the shimmering sea was scales of silver; the hum of giant machinery throbbed on the balmy air. It was a night so glorious that one doubted if there could be anything but beauty and happiness on earth.
And yet—how much misery and sorrow, pain and tears are mingled with joy in life! The lure of the East, the mystery of dreamed-of Eden and with it strife and labor! The nobility of creation, the pettiness of life; the loveliness of nature, the emptiness of man’s efforts.
Five bells—the Vesper on shipboard.
The muffled call of the Muezzin from the nearby minaret of Perim town drifted across the silvery stream.