for the world's pleasures, I had few
affections; it mattered not the toss of a silver tester whether I was
drowned there and then in the Atlantic, or dribbled out a few more
years, to die, perhaps no less terribly, in a deserted sick-bed. Down I
went upon my knees--holding on by the locker, or else I had been
instantly dashed across the tossing cabin--and, lifting up my voice in
the midst of that clamour of the abating hurricane, impiously prayed for
my own death. "O God!" I cried, "I would be liker a man if I rose and
struck this creature down; but Thou madest me a coward from my mother's
womb. O Lord, Thou madest me so, Thou knowest my weakness, Thou knowest
that any face of death will set me shaking in my shoes. But, lo! here is
Thy servant ready, his mortal weakness laid aside. Let me give my life
for this creature's; take the two of them, Lord! take the two, and have
mercy on the innocent!" In some such words as these, only yet more
irreverent and with more sacred adjurations, I continued to pour forth
my spirit. God heard me not, I must suppose in mercy; and I was still
absorbed in my agony of supplication when some one, removing the
tarpaulin cover, let the light of the sunset pour into the cabin. I
stumbled to my feet ashamed, and was seized with surprise to find myself
totter and ache like one that had been stretched upon the rack. Secundra
Dass, who had slept off the effects of his drug, stood in a corner not
far off, gazing at me with wild eyes; and from the open skylight the
captain thanked me for my supplications.

"It's you that saved the ship, Mr. Mackellar," says he. "There is no
craft of seamanship that could have kept her floating: well may we say,
'Except the Lord the city keep, the watchmen watch in vain'!"

I was abashed by the captain's error; abashed, also, by the surprise
and fear with which the Indian regarded me at first, and the obsequious
civilities with which he soon began to cumber me. I know now that he
must have overheard and comprehended the peculiar nature of my prayers.
It is certain, of course, that he at once disclosed the matter to his
patron; and looking back with greater knowledge, I can now understand
what so much puzzled me at the moment, those singular and (so to speak)
approving smiles with which the Master honoured me. Similarly, I can
understand a word that I remember to have fallen from him in
conversation that same night; when, holding up his hand and smiling,
"Ah! Macke