Looking out over the bow of the Magister Maris and spotting his home harbor in Newport, Rhode Island for the first time in several months, Captain Marin Carpenter’s heart sank. The journey was complete. The forty tons of black pepper he had gathered from Sumatra would soon be unloaded, he would pay his crew and wait for word of the next voyage while nestled in the cramped but cozy confines of the Captain’s quarters, where he has felt most at home these last ten years.

Amid the human silences left behind by the departed crew, he listened to the moans, groans, and creaking complaints of his aging wooden vessel echoing his own; both in need of much-neglected rest and repair. He poured himself a small tankard of rum and wrapped an old woolen quilt about his shoulders. The chilling winds of winter had already begun to blow that second week of December 1811, whistling through the masts and yardarms, and the incoming tide snuggled the ship against its mooring as if to tuck it in for the season.

As Marin was about to fall asleep he heard footsteps on the deck above. He eased himself off of his bunk and tiptoed up the steps to the main deck where he found his First Mate, Jude Prince, checking the mooring lines.

“I thought you’d be tucked in a tavern, out of the wind, negotiating the whiskey tides,” Marin said.

“Had a funny feeling ‘bout the moorin’ lines. Thought I’d give ‘em a once over.” Mister Prince replied.

“You’re a first-rate, First Mate, Mister Prince. Care to join me below for a nightcap?”

“I’m not one to turn down the Captain’s whiskey,” Jude said. Looking out toward land, a light burning in the window of Marin’s mother’s house caught his eye. “Always a lantern in the window for ya, ay?”

Marin gave a scoff of a laugh. “That’s not for me. That is for my father,” he said, leading Jude down the narrow passageway and into the Captain’s quarters.

“For yer father, ya say? I thought he disappeared many-a-year ago.”

“Thirty years last fall, bound for Newfoundland on a ship called The Coriolis,” Marin said, handing Jude a cup of whiskey.

“Much oblige to ya, Captain,” Jude said, raising his cup first to Marin, then to his lips. “Seems I remember ya tellin’ me ya were ta sail along with ‘im, but the fates would have it otherwise.”

“My mother would have it otherwise. She wanted me to accompany my little brother Phillipe to Bible School and enter the church. Two weeks later when father failed to return, she began placing a lantern in the stair-well window every evening.”

Jude pondered a moment before muttering, “All this time ...still believin’ he might be a-sailin’ home.”

“No. I think it’s just a ritual now.”

“Musta been kinda hard on you, bein’ as you were just a lad.”

“At the time, I wondered if I weren’t to blame.”

Jude gave a quick tilt of his head. “Cause ya dint go with ‘im?”

“That was part of it.”

Jude eased himself into a chair and leaned forward as a child would in anticipation of a story.

“My father had given me a pocket compass on my seventh birthday,” Marin began. “Under the hinged cover he had a little poem engraved, it read, ‘As you sail, know thee well your destination, do not fail to keep detail of your location. Trust the stars, but should they hide, keep your compass by your side.’ I cherished that compass. It was like a good-luck piece. Years later, around the time my father disappeared, I lost it. In my child’s mind, I somehow imagined there was a connection.”

“Never found it, ay?”

“No. To this day I have dreams about being lost at sea and hearing my father’s voice shouting, ‘Trust your compass, boy!’”

There followed a long silence between the two men, allowing the solitary voices in each man’s head to have its say.

Mister Prince was the first to voice his thought. “Never knew me ol’ man.”

Marin wondered which was worse – losing your father, or never having known him.

“I suppose whoever he was, I take after ‘im,” Jude added.

“Did your mother tell you that?”

“Nah. Me mother was a mute, I hardly knew ‘er. I was but a waif schooled on the docks of London. Ya grow up quick without a family ta hold ya back. Twas the sea that took me in.”

“To the sea,” Marin said, hoisting his cup.

“Thank ya for the spirits, Captain,” Jude said, rising from the chair. “I’ll be back in the mornin’ ta see she gets unloaded proper.”

After Mister Prince left, Marin lay in bed with memories of his father sending him off to sleep.