e skipper. "Another minute or two, and we
should have been on the Manacles."

Smiling a little awkwardly, he explained that he had seen that old cap
on the floor before, without knowing how it could have got there, and
at the same time he had felt very nervous, without knowing why. The
last time was when, homeward bound in charge of a fine steamer, he
hoped Finisterre was distant, but not too far off. Just about _there_,
as it were; and that his dead reckoning was correct. The weather had
been dirty, the seas heavy, and the sun invisible. He went on, to find
nothing but worse weather. He did sight, however, two other steamers,
on the same course as himself, evidently having calculated to pass
Ushant in the morning; his own calculation. He would be off Ushant
later, for his speed was less than theirs. There they were, a lucky
and unexpected confirmation of his own reasoning. His chief officer,
an elderly man full of doubt, smiled again, and smacked his hands
together. That was all right. My friend then went into the
chart-room, and underwent the strange experience we know. He wondered
a little, concluded it was just as well to be on the safe side, and
slightly altered his course. Early next morning he sighted Ushant.
There was nothing to spare. He was, indeed, cutting it fine. The seas
were great, and piled up on the rocks of that bad coast were the two
steamers he had sighted the day before.

Why had not the other two masters received the same nudge from
Providence before it was too late? That is what the unfortunate, who
cannot genuinely offer solemn thanks like the lucky, will never know,
though they continually ask. It is the darkest and most unedifying
part of the mystery. Moreover, that side of the question, as a war has
helped us to remember, never troubles the lucky ones. Yet I wish to
add that later, my friend, when in waters not well known, in charge of
a ship on her maiden voyage--for he always got the last and best ship
from his owners, they having recognized that his stars were
well-assorted--was warned that to attempt a certain passage, in some
peculiar circumstances, was what a wise man would not lightly
undertake. But my friend was young, daring, clever, and fortunate.
That morning his cap was _not_ on the floor. At night his valuable
ship with her exceptionally valuable cargo was fast for ever on a coral
reef.

What did that prove? Apart from the fact that if the young reject the