"_I say,_" it began
with careful politeness, "_if you are a ship, do you mind telling us
where the masquerade is to be? Our wireless is out of order, and we
hadn't heard of it.... Oh, you do see it, Ward, don't you?... Please,
please tell us what the hell you are!_"

Again Abel Keeling had moved as a sleepwalker moves. He had raised
himself up by the belfry timbers, and Bligh had sunk in a heap on the
deck. Abel Keeling's movement overturned the pipkin, which raced the
little trickle of its contents down the deck and lodged where the still
and brimming sea made, as it were, a chain with the carved balustrade of
the quarter-deck--one link a still gleaming edge, then a dark baluster,
and then another gleaming link. For one moment only Abel Keeling found
himself noticing that that which had driven Bligh aft had been the
rising of the water in the waist as the galleon settled by the head--the
waist was now entirely submerged; then once more he was absorbed in
his dream, its voices, and its shape in the mist, which had again taken
the form of a pyramid before his eyeballs. "_Of course_," a voice seemed to be complaining anew, and still through
that confused dinning in Abel Keeling's ears, "_we can't turn a four-inch
on it.... And, of course, Ward, I don't believe in 'em. D'you hear, Ward? I don't believe in 'em, I say.... Shall we call down to old A. B.? This
might interest His Scientific Skippership...._"

"Oh, lower a boat and pull out to it--into it--over it--through it--"

"Look at our chaps crowded on the barbette yonder. They've seen it. Better not give an order you know won't be obeyed...."

Abel Keeling, cramped against the antique belfry, had begun to find his
dream interesting. For, though he did not know her build, that mirage was
the shape of a ship. No doubt it was projected from his brooding on ships
of half an hour before; and that was odd.... But perhaps, after all, it
was not very odd. He knew that she did not really exist; only the
appearance of her existed; but things had to exist like that before they
really existed. Before the _Mary of the Tower_ had existed she had been a
shape in some man's imagination; before that, some dreamer had dreamed
the form of a ship with oars; and before that, far away in the dawn and
infancy of the world, some seer had seen in a vision the raft before man
had ventured to push out over the water on his two planks. And since this
shape that rode before Abel Keeling's eyes was a shape in his, Abel
Keeling's dream, he, Abel Keeling, was the master of it. His own brooding
brain had contrived her, and she was launched upon the illimitable ocean
of his own mind....

_"And I will not unmindful be
  Of this, My covenant, passed
Twixt Me and you and every flesh
 Whiles that the world should last,"_

sang Bligh, rapt.... But as a dreamer, even in his dream, will scratch upon the wall by his
couch some key or word to put him in mind of his vision on the morrow
when it has left him, so Abel Keeling found himself seeking some sign to
be a proof to those to whom no vision is vouchsafed. Even Bligh sought
that--could not be silent in his bliss, but lay on the deck there,
uttering great passionate Amens and praising his Maker, as he said, upon
an harp and an instrument of ten strings. So with Abel Keeling. It would
be the Amen of his life to have praised God, not upon a harp, but upon a
ship that should carry her own power, that should store wind or its
equivalent as she stored her victuals, that should be something wrested
from the chaos of uninvention and ordered and disciplined and
subordinated to Abel Keeling's will.... And there she was, that
ship-shaped thing of spirit-grey, with the four pipes that resembled a
phantom organ now broadside and of equal length. And the ghost-crew
of that ship were speaking again.... The interrupted silver chain by the quarterdeck balustrade had now become
continuous, and the balusters made a herring-bone over their own
motionless reflections. The spilt water from the pipkin had dried, and
the pipkin was not to be seen. Abel Keeling stood beside the mast, erect
as God made man to go. With his leathery hand he smote upon the bell. He
waited for the space of a minute, and then cried:

"Ahoy!... Ship ahoy!... What ship's that?" III

We are not conscious in a dream that we are playing a game the beginning
and end of which are in ourselves. In this dream of Abel Keeling's a
voice replied:

"_Hallo, it's found its tongue.... Ahoy there! What are you?_"

Loudly and in a clear voice Abel Keeling called: "Are you a ship?" With a nervous giggle the answer came:

"_We are a ship, aren't we, Ward? I hardly feel sure.... Yes, of course,
we're a ship. No question about us. The question is what the dickens
you are._"

Not all the words these voices used were intelligible to Abel Keeling,
and he knew not what it was in the tone of these last words that reminded
him of the honour due to the _Mary of the Tower_. Blister-white and at
the end of her life as she was, Abel Keeling was still jealous of her
dignity; the voice had a youngish ring; and it was not fitting that young
chins should be wagged about his galleon. He spoke curtly. "You that spoke--are you the master of that ship?" "_Officer of the watch_," the words floated back; "_the captain's
below_." "Then send for him. It is with masters that masters hold speech," Abel
Keeling replied. He could see the two shapes, flat and without relief, standing on a high
narrow structure with rails. One of them gave a low whistle, and seemed
to be fanning his face; but the other rumbled something into a sort of
funnel. Presently the two shapes became three. There was a murmuring,
as of a consultation, and then suddenly a new voice spoke. At its thrill
and tone a sudden tremor ran through Abel Keeling's frame. He wondered
what response it was that that voice found in the forgotten recesses of
his memory....

"_Ahoy!_" seemed to call this new yet faintly remembered voice. "_What's
all this about? Listen. We're His Majesty's destroyer_ Seapink, _out of
Devonport last October, and nothing particular the matter with us. Now
who are you?_"

"The _Mary of the Tower_, out of the Port of Rye on the day of Saint
Anne, and only two men--"

A gasp interrupted him. "_Out of_ WHERE?" that voice that so strangely moved Abel Keeling said
unsteadily, while Bligh broke into groans of renewed rapture. "Out of the Port of Rye, in the County of Sussex ... nay, give ear, else
I cannot make you hear me while this man's spirit and flesh wrestle so
together!... Ahoy! Are you gone?" For the voices had become a low murmur,
and the ship-shape had faded before Abel Keeling's eyes. Again and again
he called. He wished to be informed of the disposition and economy of the
wind-chamber....

"The wind-chamber!" he called, in an agony lest the knowledge
almost within his grasp should be lost.