its our rudder. We seem to have got away from
the track now. While you were below, you see, I got her mainsail in, and
that strip of sail has no more pull than a three-cloth jib. Please God,
we may get through. If anything happens to my mainmast I shall give
in--but it's a good spar."

Ferrier's mind went wandering with a sort of boding fierceness; he
framed dramatic pictures of all that was passing in the chaotic ruin of
shattered seas that rushed and seethed around. He had often spoken of
the gigantic forces of Nature, but the words had been like algebraic
formulae; now he saw the reality, and his rebellious mind was humbled.

"To-morrow, or next day, I shall have to see the misery that this
causes. But why should I talk of misery? The word implies a complaint.
A hundred smacksmen die to-night. Pitiful! But if this hurricane and all
the lesser breezes did not blow, then millions would die who live now in
healthy air. If the sea were not lashed up and oxygenated, we should
have a stagnant pest-hole like an old rotten fishpond all round the
world. England would be like Sierra Leone, and there would soon be no
human race. Who talks of kindness and goodness in face of a scene like
this? We know nothing. The hundred fishermen die, and the unpoisoned
millions live. We are shadows; we have not a single right. If I die
to-night, I shall have been spent by an Almighty Power that has used me.
Will He cast me to nothingness after I have fulfilled my purpose? Never.
There is not a gust of this wind that does not move truly according to
eternal law; there can be no injustice, for no one can judge the Judge.
If I suffer the petty pang of Death while a great purpose is being
wrought out, I have no more reason to complain than if I were a child
sharply pushed out of the way to let a fireengine pass. The great
Purpose is everything, and I am but an instrument--just as this
hurricane is an instrument. I shall be humble and do the work next my
hand, and I will never question God any more. If a man can reckon his
own individuality as anything after seeing this sight, he is a human
failure; he is an abortion that should be wiped out. And now I'll try to
pray."

So in sharp, short steps the scholar's thought strode on, and the sombre
storming of the gale made an awful accompaniment to the pigmy's
strenuous musings. Ferrier's destiny was being settled in that
cataclysm, had he only known it; his pride was smitten, and he was ready
to "re