Smith's room had gone out.
The old gentleman had been surprisingly quick in getting into bed.
Shortly afterwards the lamp in the foremost skylight of the saloon was
turned out; and this was the sign that the steward had taken in the tray
and had retired for the night.
Young Powell had settled down to the regular officer-of-the-watch tramp
in the dense shadow of the world decorated with stars high above his
head, and on earth only a few gleams of light about the ship. The lamp
in the after skylight was kept burning through the night. There were
also the dead-lights of the stern-cabins glimmering dully in the deck far
aft, catching his eye when he turned to walk that way. The brasses of
the wheel glittered too, with the dimly lit figure of the man detached,
as if phosphorescent, against the black and spangled background of the
horizon.
Young Powell, in the silence of the ship, reinforced by the great silent
stillness of the world, said to himself that there was something
mysterious in such beings as the absurd Franklin, and even in such beings
as himself.
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