Later, through Wada, I was to learn that his name was Andy Fay and
that he claimed no more years than sixty-three.
I leaned against the rail in the lee of the wheel-house, and stared
up at the lofty spars and myriad ropes that I could guess were there.
No, I decided I was not keen on the voyage. The whole atmosphere of
it was wrong. There were the cold hours I had waited on the pier-
ends. There was Miss West coming along. There was the crew of
broken men and lunatics. I wondered if the wounded Greek in the
'midship house still gibbered, and if Mr. Pike had yet sewed him up;
and I was quite sure I would not care to witness such a transaction
in surgery.
Even Wada, who had never been in a sailing-ship, had his doubts of
the voyage. So had the steward, who had spent most of a life-time in
sailing-ships. So far as Captain West was concerned, crews did not
exist. And as for Miss West, she was so abominably robust that she
could not be anything else than an optimist in such matters. She had
always lived; her red blood sang to her only that she would always
live and that nothing evil would ever happen to her glorious
personality.
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