CHAPTER 2.
After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure.
He made many voyages.

He knew the magic monotony of existence between sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread--but whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work.

This reward eluded him.

Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

Besides, his prospects were good.