11

This chapter is trailing as many tail–pieces as a kite. The end one shall be a lonely, tall figure, not without a certain sinister dignity, standing at the taffrail of a liner bound for the Argentine, and watching that brilliant theme with endless variations, a moonlit wake. Already as they came into warmer latitudes, dots and thin threads of phosphorescence were becoming frequent in the black–green water.

"Farewell to England," he said. "Farewell to the political life. Farewell to proletariat and bourgeoisie. Farewell to the stink and infinite vulgarity of a mechanised civilisation. And in particular farewell to the Mockery called Law."

He felt magnificently Byronic.

He quoted:

"Adieu, adieu! my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue; The Night–winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild sea–mew. Yon sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his flight; Farewell awhile to him and thee, My native Land—Good Night!"

He wished he had a better memory for poetry. Then he wouldn't have to go on repeating this verse, night after night.

He was going back to the great freedom of nature—in a general sort of way. Presently Bonina, as weary of that so–called Civilisation as he was, would break away from the tutelage of her trustees and come after him. So she had promised him. They would get some little hundred tonner, they would get together a crew of congenial souls and sail off westward from Valparaiso, to lead lives of untrammelled scorn, defiance and impulse in the South Seas. They would have a great time. They would perhaps buy or acquire some little sunlit island and become Sun Children. They had worn the harness of a decadent social life long enough.

Now they would love like tigers, now they would pursue each other naked about the atoll, slashing at each other wildly and deliciously with riding whips, or rush through the breakers rejoicing, and dive and fight sharks with the long thin knives they would carry between their teeth.

When his leg was better, that is.

And if she didn't change her mind at the last moment…

What were they saying of him in England? (Not that he cared a dam.) But what were they probably saying? Would there be a reaction? Would they want him back?…

There was no reaction, no one wanted him back, and so be vanishes from our story to the throb of a steamer screw, into the sweet, deep blue of the sub–tropical night.