sked Ben Yool
what he thought of them.

"To my mind, Master Harry, they are nothing better than a set of
pirates, and I had just as soon not have fallen in with them in smooth
water."

Every spy-glass on board was directed towards them. Strange as it
appeared, there could be no doubt about the matter. In spite of the
terrific gale--in spite of the prospect of the masts going overboard,
and of the ship being reduced to a complete wreck, an event which might
any moment occur, the wretched crew of the brig were destroying each
other with the maddest fury. From the state of things on board as we
saw them, the chances were that the survivors of the victorious party
would not have strength to take in sail or clear the deck at the end of
the fight.

"That was an extraordinary spectacle we have just witnessed," observed
Cousin Silas, as Jerry and I were holding on to the rails near him as
the strange brig disappeared, hidden by the dark foam-topped waves which
leaped up between her and us. "Never heard anything like it before,
perhaps you will say, lads. Now, in my opinion, you have heard of many
things exactly like it before. What is the world doing at the present
moment? What has it been doing since the flood? Men have been
quarrelling, and fighting, and knocking each other on the head, while
ruin has been encircling them around, from that time to the present. We
were sent into this world to perform certain duties--to help each other
in doing them--to love God and to love each other. If we obey God, we
are promised eternal happiness: if we disobey him, eternal punishment.
We are told that this world must come to an end, and that all things in
it will be destroyed. What do men do? They shut their eyes to all
these truths. They live as if they and everything in the world were to
last for ever--as if there were no God to obey and love; and, like the
madmen we have just seen, they separate into parties, hating each other,
and fight, and quarrel, and deface God's image in which he made man,
utterly regardless of the terrible doom awaiting them--just as the
people aboard that ship were doing."

"The simile would not have occurred to me, Mr Brand," observed Jerry.
"I see it now, though. Still, if people do as little harm as they can,
it is all right."

"No, no, lad. Don't for a moment indulge in such an erroneous, foolish
notion, put into people's heads by the spirit of evil himself, to
deceive them. I tell yo