the eyes of men. "We were all of us," says I,
"children once; and our baby feet have strolled in green woods ashore;
and our baby hands have gathered flowers in gardens, where the birds were
singing. The children that we were, are not lost to the great knowledge
of our Creator. Those innocent creatures will appear with us before Him,
and plead for us. What we were in the best time of our generous youth
will arise and go with us too. The purest part of our lives will not
desert us at the pass to which all of us here present are gliding. What
we were then, will be as much in existence before Him, as what we are
now." They were no less comforted by this consideration, than I was
myself; and Miss Coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said,
"Captain Ravender, I was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man,
whom I dearly loved when he was honourable and good. Your words seem to
have come out of my own poor heart." She pressed my hand upon it,
smiling.

Twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days. We were in no want of
rain-water, but we had nothing else. And yet, even now, I never turned
my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine. O, what
a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death, the
shining of a face upon a face! I have heard it broached that orders
should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. I admire
machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be
for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face
of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and
true. Never try it for that. It will break down like a straw.

I now began to remark certain changes in myself which I did not like.
They caused me much disquiet. I often saw the Golden Lucy in the air
above the boat. I often saw her I have spoken of before, sitting beside
me. I saw the Golden Mary go down, as she really had gone down, twenty
times in a day. And yet the sea was mostly, to my thinking, not sea
neither, but moving country and extraordinary mountainous regions, the
like of which have never been beheld. I felt it time to leave my last
words regarding John Steadiman, in case any lips should last out to
repeat them to any living ears. I said that John had told me (as he had
on deck) that he had sung out "Breakers ahead!" the instant they were
audible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struck before it could be
don