your life?"

Lavis smiled again, but more slowly. "You are persistent, Mr. Meade."

"I beg your pardon. It is the journalist's interviewing habit. And I
thought I recalled, also----"

Lavis seemed to be waiting for Meade to finish, but Meade, who suddenly
realized to what he was leading, did not finish; and Lavis turned his
head so as to look squarely at Cadogan. Through the half-closed, wistful
eyes Cadogan caught a gleam that he again felt was an answer to Meade's
unfinished question, and yet was again meant, not for Meade, but for
himself.

"But to return," persisted Meade; "how is the world to benefit by your
theory that God does not allow a great spirit to die?"

"Well, call it theory. After the mortal death of a man whose dying was a
tremendous experience, there will be born again a great soul. And if the
being in whom that soul is enshrined is but true to the best in himself,
he will attain to the utterance of a great message, compel the world to
listen to his message; and the world, having listened, will be for all
time the better."

"I suppose"--Meade was by now not wholly free of self-consciousness--"a
man should have had a training as a writer to best fit him for such an
experience?"

"Writer, sculptor, painter, musician, lawgiver--anything, so that he
possesses the germ, the potential power to make others see, hear, or
feel things as he does."

"But who aboard this ship possesses such a gift?"

Lavis turned to Cadogan. "Here is the man."

"Who!" Cadogan bounded in his seat; and then, smiling at himself:
"That's a good one--I took it seriously."

"Take it seriously, please."

Cadogan instantly sobered. "But I'm not aching to die. And the Lord
never intended me for a martyr."

"Are you sure you know what the Lord intended you for? You have done
great deeds in one way. You could do great deeds in another way. A great
deed is never more than a great thought in action. You need but the
great thought to give the great deed birth."

"But I never originated a great thought in my life."

"What man ever did? The seeds of great thoughts are born in us, which
means that they come from God. But great deeds are man's. And if it
should come to pass in your adventurous life that you go to a calamitous
death, it may not be altogether a pity. If your heart remains pure as
now, it surely would not be. You have every qualification, if you could
but be born again."

"Why wouldn't you yourself be the man for