Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/185

 the anchor held in the lagoon floor. The copper sheathing was clearly visible with a few weeds waving from it, fish hung round the stern post and the secret green, the ship-shadow green—the green that is nowhere but in sea water alongside a moored ship—went to Dick's heart as something new, yet old in memory, a last touch to the wonder and enchantment of the hull, the towering masts, the rigging outlined against the diamond-bright blue of the sky.

Tying the boat to the chain plates he scrambled on board followed by the other. Then he stood and looked about him.

His feet had not rested on the deck of a ship since that time when as a tiny child he stood on the deck of the Rarotonga, Kearney about to hand him into the shore boat, Lestrange waiting to receive him. So many years ago that time had taken away everything from memory, everything but a vague something that was partly a perfume: the smell of a ship in tropical waters, tar, wood, cordage, all intensified by the tropical sun and mixed with sea scents in one unforgettable bouquet.

He swept the deck with his eyes and then looked aloft. The strange thing was that not only did he know all the important parts of the standing and running rigging, but he knew each part by its name, and by its English name; the only remnants of the language of his childhood were here, attached to the down-hauls, the topping lifts, the halyards, the blocks, taught by Kearney and held tightly to his mind by