Abaft The Funnel Chapter 4 - A Smoke Of Manila

In which a seaman contemplates the mysterious and perilous nature of the sea by night, marked by an ominous encounter with a brightly lit passenger steamer and the silent terror of impending disaster. Later, a conversation with a fellow sailor unfolds the tale of a determined lover’s fraught struggle against an Irish father-in-law’s disapproval in California’s rugged west.