On my right hand there were lines
of fishing stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged
bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of
tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by
some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the
ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye
could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting ruins
of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set in
a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie
below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone
smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an
imperceptible ripple. And when I turned my head to take a parting
glance at the tug which had just left us anchored outside the bar,
I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea,
edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled
floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky.
Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea, two
small clumps of trees, one on each side of the only fault in the
impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just
left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward journey; and,
far back on the inland level, a larger and loftier mass, the grove
surrounding the great Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on which
the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous
sweep of the horizon. Here and there gleams as of a few scattered
pieces of silver marked the windings of the great river; and on the
nearest of them, just within the bar, the tug steaming right into
the land became lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as
though the impassive earth had swallowed her up without an effort,
without a tremor. My eye followed the light cloud of her smoke, now
here, now there, above the plain, according to the devious curves
of the stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I lost it
at last behind the miter-shaped hill of the great pagoda. And then
I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the head of the Gulf of
Siam.
She floated at the starting point
of a long journey, very still in an immense stillness, the shadows
of her spars flung far to the eastward by the setting sun. At that
moment I was alone on her decks. There was not a sound in her--and
around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe on the water,
not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless
pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be measuring
our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed task
of both our existences to be carried out, far from all human eyes,
with only sky and sea for spectators and for judges.
There must have been some glare
in the air to interfere with one's sight, because it was only just
before the sun left us that my roaming eyes made out beyond
the
highest ridges of the principal
islet of the group something which did away with the solemnity of
perfect solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with
tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out above the shadowy
earth, while I lingered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship's
rail as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend. But, with all that
multitude of celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of
quiet communion with her was gone for good. And there were also
disturbing sounds by this time--voices, footsteps forward; the
steward flitted along the main-deck, a busily ministering spirit; a
hand bell tinkled urgently under the poop deck....
I found my two officers waiting
for me near the supper table, in the lighted cuddy. We sat down at
once, and as I helped the chief mate, I said:
"Are you aware that there is a
ship anchored inside the islands? I saw her mastheads above the
ridge as the sun went down."
He raised sharply his simple
face, overcharged by a terrible growth of whisker, and emitted his
usual ejaculations: "Bless my soul, sir! You don't say so!"