Surinam must have a very long coast-line, I was thinking.
But perhaps it was that typhoon that delayed us.... Really, he ought
not to make his descriptions so graphic, for Mrs. Marlow, I feared,
was a bad sailor, and she was beginning to look quite ill.... I
caught her looking over her shoulder in a frightened shudder, as
though seeking the companionway.
It was quite true. By the time we had reached Tonking, I felt sure
there was someone else in the room. In my agitation I stole a
cautious glance from the taff-rail of my eye and saw a white figure
standing hesitantly by the door, in an appalled and embarrassed
silence. The Director saw it, too, for he was leaning as far away
from the fire as he could without jibing his chair, and through the
delicate haze of roasting tweed that surrounded him I could see
something wistfully appealing in his glance. The Lawyer, too, had a
mysterious shimmer in his loyal eyes, but his old training in the
P. and O. service had been too strong for him. He would never speak,
I felt sure, while his commanding officer had the floor.
I began to realize that, in a sense, the responsibility was mine.
The life of the sea--a curious contradiction. Trained from boyhood
to assume responsibility, but responsibility graded and duly
ascending through the ranks of command. Marlow, an old shipmaster,
and more than that, our host--a trying problem.
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