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The truth was not in him, common honesty was not in him, and he was as far away from fair play and square-dealing as he was from his proper course when he nearly wrecked the Snark on the Ring- gold Isles. It was at Suva, in the Fijis, that I discharged my third and last captain and took up gain the role of amateur navigator.
The life-boat and launch were packed with it. The awning- guys groaned under their burdens. But once we struck the full trade-wind sea, the disburdening began. At every roll the Snark shook overboard a bunch or so of bananas and cocoanuts, or a basket of limes. A golden flood of limes washed about in the lee-scuppers.
As the days went by the absence of life became almost uncanny. "Never mind," I said. "When we do pick up with the flying fish we'll pick up with everything else. The flying fish is the staff of life for all the other breeds. Everything will come in a bunch when we find the flying fish." When I should have headed the Snark south-west for Hawaii, I still held her south.
And when we careened the Snark and had to work in the water to our necks between shocks of fever, I noted how raw trade rum helped the work along. And here again we come to another side of many-sided John Barleycorn. On the face of it, he gives something for nothing. Where no strength remains he finds new strength. The wearied one rises to greater effort.
By the thirtieth time it has become a word like "snark" or "pobble." It does not become tame, it becomes wild, by repetition. In the end a dog walks about as startling and undecipherable as Leviathan or Croquemitaine. It may be that this explains the repetitions in Nature, it may be for this reason that there are so many million leaves and pebbles.
"But she's a very accomplished imp. I'll tell you the joke afterwards, not now! Lispeth little knows where her string comes from, and she's wrapping up that parcel so placidly! Isn't the Snark looking quite pretty this afternoon? Never saw her with such a color! Well, if you're ready, Queenie, we'll go over to the hostel and get my things. We can just catch the four o'clock train, if we're quick.
The Snark sailed from Fiji on Saturday, June 6, and the next day, Sunday, on the wide ocean, out of sight of land, I proceeded to endeavour to find out my position by a chronometer sight for longitude and by a meridian observation for latitude. The chronometer sight was taken in the morning when the sun was some 21 degrees above the horizon.
We'll know something about geography when we get back to California. People that build houses are often sore perplexed; but if they enjoy the strain of it, I'll advise them to build a boat like the Snark. Just consider, for a moment, the strain of detail. Take the engine. What is the best kind of engine the two cycle? three cycle? four cycle?
Other cheque-books showed me that during the many months of the building of the Snark I had paid him several thousand dollars. Then why in the name of common decency hadn't he tried to collect his miserable little balance instead of libelling the Snark?
"Oh, that's not her real name." He filled the cans vigorously. "She is really Swanson or Swanage or something like that but I never know what it is, so I call her Swastika. She is rather like the individual in the 'Hunting of the Snark, who 'answered to Hi or to any loud cry, but it's handy having a name to call her by sometimes."
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