'Turner was lost.'
"'You believe that, too?'
"I looked at him point-blank; his eyes shifted; he couldn't face me now.
'Yes, I do,' I told him. 'Why don't you own up, before--?'
"He moved away hastily, as if offended to the heart. But the strong man
had gone, the air of perfect confidence had disappeared; he was
shattered and spent--but not yet broken. Pride is more tenacious than
courage; and men with hearts of water will continue to function through
self-esteem.
"Looking above his head, where the sky and the sea met in a blanket of
flying spume, I caught sight for an instant of something that resembled
the vague form of a headland. Watching closely, I soon saw it
again--unmistakably the shadow of land to port, well forward, of the
beam. Land! That meant that the wind had shifted to the southward, that
we were being blown against the shore.
"I worked my way cautiously aft, where Lee Fu stood like a man of iron
at the tiller, lashed to the heavy cross-rail that must have been
constructed for such occasions. He saw me coming, leaned toward me.
"'Land!' I shouted, pointing on the port bow.
"He nodded vigorously, to show me that he'd already seen it.
'Recognize--' The rest of the answer was blown away by the wind.
"By pantomime, I called his attention to the shift of the storm.
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