r merry voices;
and then looking round again towards the sea, it looked rough and dark
before him; and he forgot the burning mountain, and the terrible thunder,
and the bright happy land for which he was bound, and the goodly company
he was in, and the kind face of the kingly man; and he was like one in a
dream, before whose eyes all sorts of shapes and colours fly, and in
whose ears all sounds are ringing; and he thought no more of the helm,
nor watched the sails; and so the driving swell carried his boat idly
along with its long roll; and in a few minutes more I saw it at the top
of a white foaming breaker, and then he and it were dashed down upon the
rocks which girdled the sandy beach, and he was seen again no more.

Then I turned my eyes to two other boats, which were going fast away from
the true course, for no reason which I could see; but when I looked at
them more closely, I saw that they were in a sort of angry race; each
wished to get to the wind-side of the other; and they were so busy
thinking about this, and looking at one another with angry glances, and
calling out to one another with angry words, that they forgot to look for
the leader's ship, or to watch the finger of the compass; and so they
were going altogether wide of the track along which they should have
passed.

Then I looked closely at another, which was shooting quite away in
another direction; and I saw that the poor child had left the rudder, and
was playing with something in the bottom of the boat; and as I looked
nearer in it, I saw that it was with some of the bright berries of the
rocky island which he had brought with him that he was so foolishly busy.

Foolish, indeed, he was; and kind had been the warning of the man who
bade them leave all these behind: for whilst I was watching him, and
wondering what would be the end of such a careless voyage, I saw his
little boat strike suddenly upon a hidden rock, which broke a hole in its
wooden sides, and the water rushed in, and the boat began to sink, and
there was no help near, and the poor boy was soon drowned in the midst of
the waves.

Then I turned sadly away to watch the boats which were following their
leader; and here, too, I saw strange things; for though the sea when
looked at from afar seemed just alike to all, yet when I watched any one,
I saw that he had some difficulties, and some frights, and some helps of
his own, which I did not see the others have.

Sometimes it would fa