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124 CAPTAIN ROBERT KNOX

the years 1690 and 1714, at odd times between voyages, two sea captains used to meet each other in London, dine together, shift their tides, and then go off again trading to the coast or hunting the never-caught galleon, as their marvellous fates led them. Both had endured more than man is usually given to endure, both had tasted to the full of life's unexpectedness; but perhaps the strangest of all the strange things that happened to them was this—that once or twice, before they met each other, their wanderings brought them close together and then swept them apart, as though life had determined that their two souls should never know each other in action, only meet when the action was done, to complete each other's sagas from complemental memories; Dampier to hear from Knox what happened to the Cygnet's crew, Knox to hear from Dampier how that crew came into being.