The morning sunlight was pale and fluttered on the waves. It struck sharp directly through my thin clothes which had seemed so much too heavy a day ago. With the sharpness of a knife it divided the deck, pale strips between the clear-cut shadows of moving men, shadows diagonal across the vertical lines of the deck-planks. Because of the ship’s gentle heave and roll on the waves, the slanting of these actually-vertical lines gave the illusion that they were sliding apart from one another in independent motion, and presently the ship would disintegrate and we would all, captain, crew, cargo and stowaway, be ourselves rolling in the blue water, but it did not seem to matter at all.

I leaned back at my ease among the crates. I watched the crew swabbing the deck, and later preparations for landing.

White birds made dozens of tiny arches over the ship. They alighted in rows on the bulwarks; and the crew, big bronzed men in red sashes and very little else except for metal jewelery and knives, threw to them meat-scraps I wouldn’t have disdained.

One bird alighted on a crate up-ended beside me. It peered down at me with a pearly pink eye. It was so far the only being on this ship which had discovered me.

In spite of my emptiness, stiffness and chilliness I was more contented than I could ever remember and, as I looked around at water, sky, wind and sunlight, I kept realizing that there was a fond, perhaps faintly foolish smile on my face. I knew I should be discovered when we landed and unloaded: if I were a boy I should have been kicked, bullied, perhaps made to work for the passage I’d taken; but when I behaved like a charming little lady I should be off in a few minutes.

Then, what should I do in an unknown port? It might be difficult, I was quite alone and a stranger, and my bundle of humble but useful belongings had been the only thing I’d lost in my flight from the General.

But I had a feeling I should begin a new life in this new place. Helped by this core of balance I had this morning discovered born in me—acceptance, confidence, ableness to deal with whatever life would send and which I should accept—a balance somehow fostered by the sunlight, the wind, the creak of boards, the crack of a sail against the mast, the slap of spray on the gunwales and of water swilling in the bilge. This was complete freedom. A continuance of life in a new world miles even from memories of everything before.