Like many benefactors of
humanity, the cook took himself too seriously, and reaped the reward of
irreverence. We were not un-ungrateful, however. He remained heroic. His
saying--_the_ saying of his life--became proverbial in the mouth of men
as are the sayings of conquerors or sages. Later, whenever one of us
was puzzled by a task and advised to relinquish it, he would express his
determination to persevere and to succeed by the words:--"As long as she
swims I will cook!"
The hot drink helped us through the bleak hours that precede the dawn.
The sky low by the horizon took on the delicate tints of pink and yellow
like the inside of a rare shell. And higher, where it glowed with a
pearly sheen, a small black cloud appeared, like a forgotten fragment of
the night set in a border of dazzling gold. The beams of light skipped
on the crests of waves. The eyes of men turned to the eastward. The
sunlight flooded their weary faces. They were giving themselves up to
fatigue as though they had done for ever with their work. On Singleton's
black oilskin coat the dried salt glistened like hoar frost. He hung
on by the wheel, with open and lifeless eyes.
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