We could not have that argument then, for I had so little time to go ashore and purchase what necessaries could be remembered while narrowly watching the clock.  I was astride the bulwarks again when the Windhover was free of her moorings.  There was a lack of deliberation and dignity in this departure which gave it the appearance of improvisation, of not being the real thing.  I could not believe it mattered whether I went or not.  My first voyage had, that is, those common circumstances which always make our crises incredible when they face us, as if they had met us by accident, in mistake for some one else.  The bascules of the Tower Bridge went up, this time to let out me.  Yet that significant gesture, obviously made to my ship, was watched with an indifference which was little better than cynicism.  What was this city, past which we moved?  In that haze it was only the fading impress of what once was there, of what once had overlooked the departure of voyagers, when on memorable journeys, in famous ships.  Now it had almost gone.  It had seen its great days.  There was nothing more to watch upon its River, and so it was going.  And was an important voyage ever made by one who had forgotten his overcoat?  The steward rose, raised his bucket of fish offal, emptied it overboard, and went below.  It was not easy to believe that such a voyage could come to anything, for London itself was intangible, and when we got past those heavier shades which were the city, and were running along the Essex marshes, though there was more light, there was nothing to be seen, not even land substantial enough to be a shadow.  There was only the length of our own ship.  Our pilot left us, and we felt our way to the Lower Hope, a place I could have accepted if it had not been on the chart, and anchored.

Night came, and drove me below to the saloon, where we made five who sat with the sprats, now fried, and mugs of tea before us.  The saloon was the hollow stern, a triangle with a little fireplace in its base, and four bunks in its sides.  Its centre was filled with a triangular table, over which, pendent from the skylight, was an oil-lamp in chains.  A settee ran completely round the sides, and on that one sat for meals, and used it as a step when climbing into a bunk.  The skipper cheerily hailed me.  “As you’re in for it, make yourself comfortable.  Sorry we can’t do more than give you the seat to sleep on.  But the chief thing in this ship is fish.  Try some sprats.”

“Aye, try yon sprats,” invited the Chief.  “Ye’ll get to like them well, in time.”  After the fish there was cards, in which I took no hand, but regarded four bent heads, so intent they might have been watching a ritual of magic which might betray their fate; and, above those heads, motionless blue cirrus clouds of tobacco smoke wreathing the still lamp.  The hush was so profound that we could have been anchored beyond the confines of this life.