Chapter 15

With a heart of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander;
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.

With a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney--
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end,
Methinks it is no journey.

-- Tom a' Bedlam's Song.

'GOOD-BYE, Bess; I promised you fifty. Here's a hundred--all that I got
for my furniture from Beeton. That will keep you in pretty frocks for
some time. You've been a good little girl, all things considered, but you've
given me and Torpenhow a fair amount of trouble.'

'Give Mr. Torpenhow my love if you see him, won't you?'

'Of course I will, dear. Now take me up the gang-plank and into the
cabin. Once aboard the lugger and the maid is--and I am free, I mean.'

'Who'll look after you on this ship?'

'The head-steward, if there's any use in money. The doctor when we
come to Port Said, if I know anything of P. and O. doctors. After that, the
Lord will provide, as He used to do.'

Bess found Dick his cabin in the wild turmoil of a ship full of leavetakers
and weeping relatives. Then he kissed her, and laid himself down in his
bunk until the decks should be clear. He who had taken so long to move
about his own darkened rooms well understood the geography of a ship,
and the necessity of seeing to his own comforts was as wine to him.

Before the screw began to thrash the ship along the Docks he had been
introduced to the head-steward, had royally tipped him, secured a good
place at table, opened out his baggage, and settled himself down with joy
in the cabin. It was scarcely necessary to feel his way as he moved about,
for he knew everything so well. Then God was very kind: a deep sleep of
weariness came upon him just as he would have thought of Maisie, and
he slept till the steamer had cleared the mouth of the Thames and was
lifting to the pulse of the Channel.

The rattle of the engines, the reek of oil and paint, and a very familiar
sound in the next cabin roused him to his new inheritance.

'Oh, it's good to be alive again!' He yawned, stretched himself vigorously,
and went on deck to be told that they were almost abreast of the lights of
Brighton. This is no more open water than Trafalgal Square is a
common; the free levels begin at Ushant; but none the less Dick could feel
the healing of the sea at work upon him already. A boisterous little
cross-swell swung the steamer disrespectfully by the nose; and one wave
breaking far aft spattered the quarterdeck and the pile of new
deck-chairs. He heard the foam fall with the clash of broken glass, was
stung in the face by a cupful, and sniffing luxuriously, felt his way to the
smoking-room by the wheel. There a strong b