kness was riven by lightning, the set faces of the
fishermen, fighting for life, showed pallid for a moment and the racing
billows glimmered with blue streaks.

It was while the gray was turning yet darker that Peter caught sight of
that which took his attention from the storm. "My Lord and my God!" he
cried in great alarm. "What is that?" and he threw out a long arm
which wavered with the vibration of the boat, as he pointed.

"Where? What seest thou?" those about him called back.

"I know not. But look you where the waves boil as a brew doth boil in
a kettle! Something doth move about the waters like a strange, living
mist."

"It is but spray thrown up."

"Nay, nay, not spray. It riseth and moveth itself aright, like unto a
man."

The fishermen gathered at the side of the pitching ship and held on to
one another and to the wet woodwork.

"It is a man. It walketh on the water!"

"It is the ghost of John whose head Herod took off!"

"Walks it without a head?"

"Nay, it hath a head."

"It is a spectre. It treadeth the way of death and that swirling pool
over which it hovereth is our grave!"

"Look you! Look--my Lord--my Lord! A light cometh where the face is.
God of our fathers--it is Jesus walking the waters like a bird of the
storm! When gat he from the ship? Watch thee the spirit, James, while
I find the place he lay." And Peter fell on his hands and knees and
started to creep toward the pile of fish-nets in the other end of the
boat.

In terror the men he had left huddled together, except James who
watched the spirit moving over the water. A cry from Peter drew their
attention. "He is here," they heard him shouting above the whistle of
the wind. "He is sleeping as if the soul of him had departed!"

"Wake him! Shout into his ear that we perish--we perish--" The last
words of James who had called, were swallowed up by the hissing of a
wave which broke over the deck and threw the men into the rigging and
nets.

"Waken him before she takes the next wave! Hasten!"

The words were borne away on the gale but in the ear of the sleeping
Rabbi, Peter was shouting as he shook his shoulder, "Master, the
tempest is raging! The billows dash like mountains! Just ahead lieth
death! Carest thou not that we perish? How canst thou lie asleep?
Thy garments are running like a river and thy hair washed tight to thy
head! Awake! Awake!"

The sleeping man awoke. The next moment James shouted,