"It wasn't that, I s'pose?" he suggested.
"You've got it," cried the cook. "That was it, Dan; the very place. Fancy you knowin' it. Well, we got to go down there and get in across a sort of bar what's there an' discharge into lighters. Seems it's a bit out o' the way o' shippin'. The skipper said that the charterers seemed to think the old boat ran on wheels."
"Queer!" said Dan. To himself he said: "He must ha' heard the name somewhere and hitched his dream to it."
The name, as it chanced, was one of many syllables, and the sailors managed them badly. Men who speak of the islands of Diego Ramirez as the "Daggarammarines" are not likely to deal faithfully with a narrie that rings delicately like guitar strings, and Dan observed that their mention of the barque's destination had no effect upon the Dago. For him all ports had become indifferent; one was not nearer than another to any place of his desire. He spoke no more of his town; when the men, trying to draw him, spoke about food, or women, or other roads to luxury, he answered without smiling.
"I t'ink no more 'bout dat," he said. "T'ree year work an' have bad times. Before, I don' remember o more."
"He was better when he was crazy," agreed the seamen. It was as though the gaiety, the spring of gladness, within the little man had been dried up; there was left only the incompetent and despised Dago. He faced the routine of his toil now with no smile of preoccupation for a sweeter vision; he shuffled about decks, futile as ever, with the dreariness of a man in prison.
Only to Dan he spoke more freely. It was while the watch was washing down decks in the morning. The two were side by side, plying their brooms along the wet planks, while about them the dawn broadened towards the tropic day.
"I am no more mad," said the Dago. "Now I know I am not mad. Dat name of de place where we go de men don' know how to speak it, but it is de name of my town, de town I t'ink about once so much. Yais I know! At last, after all dis time, I come dere, but I am not glad. I am never glad no more 'bout not'ing."
Dan worked on. He could think of no answer to make.
"Only 'bout one t'ing I am glad," went on the Dago. "'Bout a friend I make on dis ship; 'bout you, Dan."