But they were in a latitude where the storm came swiftly on the calm; where, with little warning, the baby waves swelled into gigantic billows, and the sighing zephyr, gathering sudden strength, shrieked aloud and lashed the sea to fiercest fury.
The sailors who remained were principally foreigners. They had remained on the ship all night, refusing to work when they found the water gaining on them. They had gone below, torn their hair, beaten their breasts, cried aloud to the saints. Then they attacked the spirit store, and drank till they reeled down and slept a brutish, drunken sleep where they lay.
The passengers still left were all men, but unskilled. Without the aid of the sailors they could not make a raft. The sailors were not in a condition to move—certainly not to work. They had resigned themselves to their fate now. That strange sense of calm which comes mercifully even to cowards when hope is absolutely dead had fallen on them all.
They stood leaning over the ship’s sides, waiting for the end, their faces pale, their eyes haggard, and their thoughts far away.
Some of them had wives and children at home, and the images of their beloved ones rose up before them. They seemed to pierce the space and see the place that would know them no more. One man whispered to those who stood near him that he had heard his little boy cry “Father!” and another said that in the night he had seen his wife hearing his little ones their prayers, and when they said “God bless papa!” she looked up, and her eyes were filled with tears.
There were yet some hours between them and death, and they could still talk to each other.
It seemed a relief to do so; it created a companionship in misery; they cheered each other with their voices.
There was a clergyman among the passengers, and, as the captain went away to his post after a few last words of encouragement to the little band, the reverend gentleman asked their attention for a moment.
Earnestly and calmly, as became an English gentleman in the presence of death, the man of God prayed to the Throne of Grace for strength and sustenance in this hour of supreme peril. Briefly he addressed his little flock of doomed ones, and then went his way, deeming the last moments of his fellow-voyagers sacred to themselves.
As he was walking quietly aft, he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.