In just such a bed.”
His thoughts seemed to be so haunted by the image of that cold and peaceful slumber that his wife trembled for him. He had not the enduring strength to bear a long trial, but he had that fitful strength which prompts to desperate deeds.
“I can see cities built and destroyed yonder,” he said. “There are white towns between dark mountains, and little hamlets up in the crevices; they grow, and then they are swallowed up. It is like a great earthquake. When the world is destroyed, it will perhaps look like that, pale and ashy.”
“Suppose we should go up on deck, and see what it looks like,” said Annette suddenly, anticipating the wish she knew he would have expressed. “It will be a change after our three days' imprisonment, and we may think the stateroom a pleasant refuge when we come back.”
They escaped the crest of a wave that leaped over the rail after them, and reached the wet and slippery deck.
“We mustn't speak to the officers,” [pg 262] Annette whispered, seeing the captain near them.
He passed them by without notice, and they hurried on to the shelter of the smoke-pipe, where the heat had dried the planks; and here, holding by ropes, they could look over the rail and see the long streaks of pale blue, where the foam slid under the surface of the water; see the gigantic struggle of the sea, and how the brave ship pushed through it all straight toward her unseen port.
Nothing is so perfect a figure of life as a ship on the sea, and one can hardly behold it without moralizing.
“Suppose that this ship had a soul of its own, instead of being guided by the will of other beings,” said Annette; “and suppose that, finding itself in such a woful case, it should say, ‘I see no port, no pole-star, no sun, nor moon, and I doubt if I shall ever see them again. I may as well stop trying, and go down here.’ Wouldn't that be a pity for itself and for others?”
“But suppose, on the other hand,” returned her husband, “that the ship had got a deadly thrust from some unseen rock, and the water was running in, and it could never gain the port. What would be the use of its striving and straining for a few leagues further?”