This picture almost decided me, for in my fevered imagination he typified the whole mad, helpless, idiotic crew.

Certainly I could go back to Baltimore.
Thank God I had the money to humour my whims.

Had not Mr.Pike told me, in reply to a question, that he estimated the running expenses of the _Elsinore_ at two hundred dollars a day?
I could afford to pay two hundred a day, or two thousand, for the several days that might be necessary to get me back to the land, to a pilot tug, or any inbound craft to Baltimore.
I was quite wholly of a mind to go down and rout out Captain West to tell him my decision, when another presented itself: _Then are you_, _the thinker and philosopher_, _the world-sick one_, _afraid to go down_, _to cease in the darkness_?
Bah! My own pride in my life-pridelessness saved Captain West's sleep from interruption.

Of course I would go on with the adventure, if adventure it might be called, to go sailing around Cape Horn with a shipload of fools and lunatics--and worse; for I remembered the three Babylonish and Semitic ones who had aroused Mr.
Pike's ire and who had laughed so terribly and silently.
Night thoughts! Sleepless thoughts! I dismissed them all and started below, chilled through by the cold.

But at the chart-room door I encountered Mr.Mellaire.
"A pleasant evening, sir," he greeted me.