Providence to mankind, could charm us long after
that was lost.

The wind was almost always against us after
the second day; and for many days together
we could not nearly hold our own. We had
all varieties of bad weather. We had rain,
hail, snow, wind, mist, thunder and lightning.
Still the boats lived through the heavy seas,
and still we perishing people rose and fell
with the great waves.

Sixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty
nights and nineteen days, twenty-four nights
and twenty-three days. So the time went on.
Disheartening as I knew that our progress,
or want of progress, must be, I never deceived
them as to my calculations of it. In the first
place, I felt that we were all too near
eternity for deceit; in the second place, I knew
that if I failed, or died, the man who followed
me must have a knowledge of the true state
of things to begin upon. When I told them
at noon, what I reckoned we had made or
lost, they generally received what I said, in
a tranquil and resigned manner, and always
gratefully towards me. It was not unusual
at any time of the day for some one to burst
out weeping loudly without any new cause,
and, when the burst was over, to calm down
a little better than before. I had seen
exactly the same thing in a house of mourning.

During the whole of this time, old Mr.
Rarx had had his fits of calling out to me to
throw the gold (always the gold!) overboard,
and of heaping violent reproaches upon me
for not having saved the child; but, now,
the food being all gone, and I having nothing
left to serve out but a bit of coffee-berry
now and then, he began to be too weak to
do this, and consequently fell silent. Mrs.
Atherneld and Miss Coleshaw generally
lay, each with an arm across one of my
knees, and her head upon it. They never
complained at all. Up to the time of her
child’s death, Mrs. Atherfield had bound
up her own beautiful hair every day; and I
took particular notice that this was always
before she sang her song at night, when
every one looked at her. But, she never did
it after the loss of her darling; and it would
have been now all tangled with dirt and
wet, but that Miss Coleshaw was careful of
it long after she was herself, and would
sometimes smooth it down with her weak
thin hands.

We were past mustering a story now; but,
one day, at about this period, I reverted to
the superstition of old Mr. Rarx, concerning
the Golden Lucy, and told them that nothing
vanished from the eye of God, though much
might pass away from 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 honorable 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. Aud 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 as 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 done.
(His cry, I dare say, had made my dream.)
I said that the circumstances were altogether
without warning and out of any course that
could have been guarded against; that
the same loss would have happened if I
had been in charge; and that John was
not to blame, but from first to last had
done his duty nobly, like the man he
was. I tried to write it down in my pocket-
book, but could make no words, though I
knew what the words were that I wanted to
make. When it had come to that, her
hands—though she was dead so long—laid
me down gently in the bottom of the boat,
and she and the Golden Lucy swung me to
sleep.