We were in the heart of peace in the midmost centre of the
storm. Margaret was in high spirits, and her laughter vied with the
clang of the jiggermast. Mr. Pike was gloomy, but I knew him well
enough to attribute his gloom, not to the elements, but to the
inefficients futilely freezing on the yard. As for me, I looked
about at the four of us--blue-eyed, gray-eyed, all fair-skinned and
royal blond--and somehow it seemed that I had long since lived this,
and that with me and in me were all my ancestors, and that their
lives and memories were mine, and that all this vexation of the sea
and air and labouring ship was of old time and a thousand times
before.
CHAPTER XXXIV
"How are you for a climb?" Margaret asked me, shortly after we had
left the table.
She stood challengingly at my open door, in oilskins, sou'wester, and
sea-boots.
"I've never seen you with a foot above the deck since we sailed," she
went on. "Have you a good head?"
I marked my book, rolled out of my bunk in which I had been wedged,
and clapped my hands for Wada.
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