In short, she points to the number of deaths that have
already occurred, and declares that on some dark night, sooner or
later, whenever the pinch of hunger sufficiently sharpens, we shall
see our rascals storming aft.
And in the meantime, except for the tenseness of it, and for the
incessant watchfulness which Margaret and I alone maintain, it is
more like a mild adventure, more like a page out of some book of
romance which ends happily.
It is surely romance, watch and watch for a man and a woman who love,
to relieve each other's watches. Each such relief is a love passage
and unforgettable. Never was there wooing like it--the muttered
surmises of wind and weather, the whispered councils, the kissed
commands in palms of hands, the dared contacts of the dark.
Oh, truly, I have often, since this voyage began, told the books to
go hang. And yet the books are at the back of the race-life of me.
I am what I am out of ten thousand generations of my kind. Of that
there is no discussion. And yet my midnight philosophy stands the
test of my breed.
Pages:
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533