But he was too happy in his new-born hope to think of much else that day; and, finding a secluded nook, he searched Annie's Bible for truths confirmatory of her words. On every side they glowed as in letters of light. Then late that night he went on deck, and in his strong excitement felt as if walking on air in his long, glad vigil.
At last, growing wearied, he leaned upon the railing and looked out upon the dark waves—not dark to him, for the wanderer at last had seen the light of his heavenly home, and felt that it would cheer his way till the portals opened and received him into rest.
Suddenly, upon the top of a distant wave, something large and white appeared, and then sank into an ocean valley. Again it rose—a sail, then the dark hull of a ship.
In dreamy musing he began, wondering how, in mid-ocean, with so many leagues of space, two vessels should cross each other's track so near. "It's just the same with human lives," he thought. "A few months or years ago, people that I never knew, and might have passed on the wider ocean of life, unknowing and uncaring, have now come so near! Why is it? Why does that ship, with the whole Atlantic before it, come so steadily toward us?"
It did come so steadily and so near that a feeling of uneasiness troubled him, but he thought that those in charge knew their business better than he.
A moment later he started forward. The ship that had come so silently and phantom-like across the waves seemed right in the path of the steamer.
Was it not a phantom?
No; there's a white face at the wheel—the man is making a sudden, desperate effort—it's too late.
With a crash like thunder the seeming phantom ship plows into the steamer's side.
For a moment Gregory was appalled, stunned; and stared at the fatal intruder that fell back in strong rebound, and dropped astern.