XII
AS Tankred had intimated, Blake's journey southward from Panama was anything but comfortable traveling. The vessel was verminous, the food was bad, and the heat was oppressive. It was a heat that took the life out of the saturated body, a thick and burdening heat that hung like a heavy gray blanket on a gray sea which no rainfall seemed able to cool.
But Blake uttered no complaint. By day he smoked under a sodden awning, rained on by funnel cinders. By night he stood at the rail. He stood there, by the hour together, watching with wistful and haggard eyes the Alpha of Argo and the slowly rising Southern Cross. Whatever his thoughts, as he watched those lonely Southern skies, he kept them to himself.
It was the night after they had swung about
179
