had no better instrument beat time on stanchions with ringing steel marlin spikes.
Paul winced as the accordions and mouth-organs played major intervals for minor, which they seemed unable to negotiate. But on the whole it was a stirring din. Certainly Otto was a musician, and everybody followed his conducting with zest. A naïve glow was reflected on the stolid faces. Paul recalled Mr. Silva's notion of music as the soul's esperanto. How Mr. Silva would have rejoiced in just such a concert!
When Paul knew the words he abandoned his comb and sang, with the last vestiges of a boyish soprano. Some of the men danced thumpingly together, reminding Paul of the trained bear that came to Hale's Turning every spring. A sailor called Shorty seized him as partner, but Paul couldn't waltz, for Hale's Turning had never countenanced anything so heathenish. He vowed he would learn.
Between selections he kept watch for the approaching ship. From a pearly blot on the horizon she had gradually taken form as a dark hull surmounted by a huge spread of canvas. For a time she had loomed high and higher, then the breeze had failed. The sky was flushed with an ardent rose screened by low-lying, etiolated brown clouds. High above the clouds were fields of pale jade and primrose, and near the horizon were palette swirls of lilac deepening to purple. Paul had feared that night would cut off the strange ship, when the man who had gone to take up his lookout duties reported lights ahead. At this announcement, he flew to the side and found the vessel only a short distance away. For hours she had seemed stationary, and now she was visibly creeping near.
The concert was abandoned and the crew came to watch—deprecatingly. Paul attributed their attitude to diffidence. He knew they were excited, to a man.
As the vessel slowly advanced, it was possible to make
