“I don’t know. I felt there was going to be a disaster of some sort—it was almost like a warning.”
“Well, there’s no saying,” said Raft. “I’ve known a chap warned he was going to be drowned, and drowned he was sure enough. I was down below asleep and shot out of my bunk by the smash; then I was on the main deck, the chaps all round shouting for boats, and if you ask me how I got off I couldn’t tell you. One minute a big light was blazing, then it was black as thunder. My mind seemed to go when the black came on, I’d no more thought than a blind puppy. Something saved me. That’s all I know.”
“God saved you,” said the girl.
“Well, maybe He did,” said Raft; “but what made Him let all the other chaps drown?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but He saved you just as He saved me. I know He looks after things. Look at those sea elephants and the gulls; He leads them about by instinct.”
“What’s that?” asked Raft.
“Instinct,” said she, suddenly formulating the idea, “is God’s mind, it tells the birds and elephants where to get food and where to go and how to avoid danger; you and I have minds of our own, but our minds are nothing to the minds of the birds and animals. They are never wrong. Look out there at those porpoises.”
“Them black fish,” said Raft, shading his eyes.
“Yes, well, look at the way they are going along, they are on a journey, going somewhere, led by instinct, and I think when human beings find themselves having to fight for life they fall back on instinct, the mind of God comes to help them. Look at me. I believe I found that cache led by instinct and I would never have pulled through only instinct told me I would, somehow. God’s mind told me.”
“Well, there’s no saying,” said Raft.