And just then Will came back, demanding with an oath if she was ready to go. She never spoke, but I should have been sorry to have any woman look at me as she did at him when his eyes were off her. I shook hands with her and with him, for the last time, and they went away.
Next morning, being lonely and having nothing to do I went out to the park, made on the great sand-dunes which runs from the higher city to the ocean beach and the Cliff House on the south side of the Golden Gate. For the sake of a quiet think I went out by the cars, and walked to a place where few ever came but chance visitors, except on Sunday. It is just at the bend of the great drive and a little above the road, where there is a large tank with a wooden top, which makes a good seat from which one can see back to San Francisco and across the bay to Oakland, Saucelito, and the other little watering-places in the bay; or before one, toward the opening of the Golden Gate, and the guns of Alcatraz Island, where the military prison is. Here I took my seat and looked out on the quiet beautiful bay and the sea just breaking in a line of foam on the beach beneath me. The sight of the ships at anchor was rather melancholy to me, for my life had been on the sea. It seemed as if a new and unknown life were before me; and a sailor starting anything ashore is as strange as though some inveterate dweller in a city should go to sea. There were one or two white sails outside the Heads, and one vessel was being towed in; there was a broad wake from the Saucelito ferry-boat, and far out to sea I saw the low Farallones lying like a cloud on the horizon. It was beyond them that my new life had begun, really begun; and though the day was fair, I knew not how soon foul weather might overtake me, and I knew indeed that it could only be postponed unless fate were very kind. I don't know how long I sat on that tank drumming on the hollow wood, as I idly picked up the pebbles from the ground and threw them down into the road; but at last I saw what I had partly been waiting for—the Vancouver being towed out to sea. I had no need to look at her twice; I knew every rope in her, and every patch of paint, to say nothing of her masts being ranked a little more than is usual nowadays. I had no glass with me, but I fancied I could see a patch of color on her poop that was Helen.
I watched the vessel which had been my home—and which, but for me, would have been lying a wreck over yonder—for more than an hour, and then I turned to go home, if I can call an American hotel "home" by strained politeness, and just then I saw a carriage come along. Now, I knew as well before I could distinguish them that Elsie, Fanny, and her father were in that carriage, as I did that Helen was on board the Vancouver; and I sat down again feeling very faint—I suppose from the effects of my wound, or the illness that came from it. The carriage had almost passed beneath me—and I felt Elsie saw me, though she made no sign—before Mr. Fleming caught sight of me.
"Hi! stop!" he called, and the driver drew up. "Why, Mr. Ticehurst, is that you? I thought the Vancouver had gone? Besides, how does a mate find time to be out here? Things must have changed since I was at sea. Come down! Come down!"
I did so, and shook hands with them all, though Elsie's hand lay in mine like a dead thing until she drew it away.
"The Vancouver has gone, Mr. Fleming," said I; "and there she is—look!"
They all turned, and Elsie kept her eyes fixed on it when the others looked at me again.
"Well," said Fleming, "what does it all mean? Where are you going? Back to town? That's right, get in!" And without more ado the old man, who had the grip of a vise, caught hold of me, and in I came like a bale of cotton. "Drive on!"
"Now then," he went on, "you can tell us why you didn't go with them."
I paused a minute, watching Elsie.