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going north at such a steady rate. I began to imagine that I was really on my way home after all. From Georgia, I thought, I might easily find a ship to take Midge and me to England, if I could beg the fare from our castaways. That didn’t seem like much to ask, though there was a lurking dread in my mind that it would never happen, that some terrible fate had come aboard with our strange sailors. Certainly, it was hard to believe I was “doing the handsome thing” as long as I left myself in the hands of Mr. Beezley.
    And so the miles went rolling past, and I spent much time alone. Often I thought of my mother and my father; sometimes I could bear to think of them no more. Then I studied the ship, learning how it worked, and
why
it worked. It was no puzzle how the wind could push it along frombehind, but a great mystery how another wind could
pull
it from ahead. I never tired of gazing at the sails, trying to learn the secret.
    With every change in the weather, my seasickness bubbled up. Or more. But
my fear
of the sea all but disappeared. I never again had to be driven aloft, and one stormy day I found myself balanced on the topgallant yard without a thought of falling or fainting. The horizon was pitching and slanting, the yard tossing like a horse, but the only thought in my head was of tying a proper reef knot.
    That moment I made it my ambition to climb even higher, to reach the very top of the mainmast. I went at it in spurts, scrambling up through the shrouds until I dared go no higher. It took me days to reach the top, but at last I did it. I stood on slender ropes, with the great gulf of sea and sky below me, and—trembling like an insect—I touched my palm to the very tip of the mast.
    To prove that I had been there I tore away the shreds of the old flag. The wind had tangled them into one long braid, and the sun had bleached the braid to white. I held it in my teeth as I descended to the deck. With much delight I set it out for Midgely on the counter of the cookhouse.
    He smiled when he touched it. He unrolled the braid with his small fingers, working the tangles from threads and shards of cloth.
    “Wouldn’t it be funny if this was really the flag of the
Flying Dutchman?”
he said. “People would ask, ‘Where did you get that old flag?’ and we would say, ‘Oh, only from the
Flying Dutchman
, that’s all.’ Wouldn’t it be grand?”
    I wasn’t really listening. I was too intent on the patternthat was appearing under Midgely’s fingers. I saw green and purple, and fragments of gold. Much more cloth had been blown away in the wind than remained for me to see, but I pieced it back together in my mind. The last time I had seen such a flag was on the ship that carried us from England toward Australia. It was the pennant flown by all of Mr. Goodfellow’s ships.
    What a turn that gave me. I had escaped from one of his ships only to get aboard another. It was as though Mr. Goodfellow had hounded me nearly to the shores of the frozen continent. I thought I could never be rid of him.
    I tore the flag from Midgely’s hands. I squashed the cloth in my fist, set it aflame in the stove, and watched it burn. I didn’t imagine that my discovery was really the first of three incidents that would, again, put a twist into the river of my life.
    The next came only a day later. It was my turn at the wheel, and dawn was breaking. As they did every morning, Beezley and Moyle came up from below with the rising of the sun. Mr. Beezley, as always, took a moment to stand at my side and study the compass.
    He was turning away to join Mr. Moyle at the stern when a strange sound came over the sea. It was a cry of loneliness, a plaintive mewling in the vanishing darkness.
    “What the devil’s that?” said Mr. Beezley, stopping in his tracks.
    “Do you think it might be mermaids?” asked Mr. Moyle, with all seriousness.
    “Humbug!”
    The cry came again. Mr. Moyle and Mr. Beezley hurried to the side of the ship.
    “If