Can a seaman be other than superstitious or religious?  The hamper of ropes that clung round the mainmast seemed to gibber like a man in fever as the gale threaded the mazes; the hollow down-draught from the foresail cried in boding tones; it seemed like some malignant elf calling “Woe to you!  Woe for ever!  Darkness is coming, and I and Death await you with cold arms.”  Every timber complained with whining iteration, and the boom of the full, falling seas tolled as a bell tolls that beats out the last minutes of a mortal’s life.  The Cockney poet sings—­

“A cheer for the hard, glad weather,
The quiver and beat of the sea!”

Shade of Rodney!  What does the man know about it?  If his joints were aching and helpless with the “hardness,” he would not think the weather so “glad”; if the “beat of the sea” made every nerve of him quiver with the agony of salt-water cracks, I reckon he would want to go home to his bath and bed; and if the savage combers gnashed at him like white teeth of ravenous beasts, I take it that his general feelings of jollity would be modified; while last of all, if he saw the dark portal—­goal of all mortals—­slowly lifting to let him fare on to the halls of doom, I wager that poet would not think of rhymes.  If he had to work!—­But no, a real sea poet does not work.

Ferrier was a good and plucky man, but the moments went past him, leaving legacies of fear.  Was he to leave the kindly world?  Oh! thrilling breath of spring, gladness of sunlight, murmur of trees, gracious faces of women!  Were all to be seen no more?  Every joyous hour came back to memory; every ungrateful thought spoken or uttered was now remembered with remorse.  Have you looked in the jaws of death?  I have, and Ferrier did so.  When the wheels of being are twirling slowly to a close, when the animal in us is cowed into stupor, then the spirit craves passionately for succour; and let a man be never so lightsome, he stretches lame hands of faith and gropes, even though he seem to gather but dust and chaff.

Roar on roar, volley on volley, sweep on sweep of crying water—­so the riot of the storm went on; the skipper waited helplessly like a dumb drudge, and a hand of ice seemed to clutch at Ferrier’s heart.

He went down to see Withers and found him patient as before.

“She du seem to have got a lot of water in her, sir.  I never felt quite like this since once I was hove down.  Say, here, sir.”

The man spoke with a husky voice.

“If so be you has to try the boat, don’t you mind me.  If you try to shove me aboard you’ll lose your lives.  I’ve thought it round, and, after all, they say it’s only three minutes.”

“But, my man, we won’t leave you; besides, she’s not gone yet.  A tub will float in a seaway; why shouldn’t the vessel?”

“I knows too much, sir, too much.  Excuse me, sir, have you done what they call found Christ?  I’m not much in that line myself, but don’t you think maybe an odd word wouldn’t be some help like in this frap?  I’m passin’ away, and I don’t want to leave anything out.”