I HAVE often considered it as one of my misfortunes that I simply do not know what fear is. As a boy I was so brave and bright that every one loved me; in my manhood my courage appals me. I feel that one day it will carry me too far.
As I climbed hand-over-hand up the side of the Zeitgeist at the Silver Street Docks, an old, old sailor stepped up to me. “Young stranger,” he said, “you will not attempt to make King’s Bridge on such a day as this? It would be madness. The boldest of us dare not.”
“Avaunt!” I cried; “where honour calls I follow. England expects. Per ardua ad astra.”
He turned away to hide his emotion. I gave him my hand, which he wrung and knocked twice. There was no answer.
With one wild, exultant leap the vessel burst from its moorings, churning the iron-bound waves to sheer desperation, foaming at the mouth, and sobbing piteously. Through the driving rain, the blinding fog, the dazzling lightning, the impenetrable mist, and the other atmospheric phenomena which Mr. Clark Russell had lent for the occasion, loomed a hideous dark object. I consulted the chart, the compass, the telescope, the ship’s biscuits, everything I could lay my hands on; but it was too late. Nearer and nearer it loomed. I could see that it was Silver Street Bridge, and that it was coming my way. Oh, the horror of it!
I shrieked to it to save itself and go away. But my voice was drowned in the fury of the elements. It loomed nearer—it never stopped looming once—and I knew that I should be unable to avoid it, that I should destroy it.
Bump! From the top of the bridge there came the voice of a small boy, asking if I was insured. He seemed hysterical, and fear had probably sapped his reason. I was swept on by the fury of the elements. No, I’ve just had that—swept on by the elemental fury—well, that’s much the same.
At any rate, I was swept on. The wind whistled in the rigging, until it got sick of being conventional. Then it went and whistled in the taffrail. At last it got so nastily original that it sang “Since first I saw your Face” in the binnacle. A hasty glance backward showed me that Silver Street Bridge was yet standing. My resolution was also unshaken.
The fierce old Berserker spirit fired my blood. Chanting aloud the grand old Latin hymn of the Crusaders—
A, ab, absque, coram, de,