se to me, stepping out of the
darkness into visibility suddenly, as if just created with his composed
face and pleasant voice.

Every rope on deck, he said, was laid down clear for running, as far as
one could make certain by feeling. It was impossible to see anything.
Frenchy had stationed himself forward. He said he had a jump or two left
in him yet.

Here a faint smile altered for an instant the clear, firm design
of Ransome's lips. With his serious clear, gray eyes, his serene
temperament--he was a priceless man altogether. Soul as firm as the
muscles of his body.

He was the only man on board (except me, but I had to preserve my
liberty of movement) who had a sufficiency of muscular strength to trust
to. For a moment I thought I had better ask him to take the wheel. But
the dreadful knowledge of the enemy he had to carry about him made me
hesitate. In my ignorance of physiology it occurred to me that he might
die suddenly, from excitement, at a critical moment.

While this gruesome fear restrained the ready words on the tip of my
tongue, Ransome stepped back two paces and vanished from my sight.

At once an uneasiness possessed me, as if some support had been
withdrawn. I moved forward, too, outside the circle of light, into
the darkness that stood in front of me like a wall. In one stride I
penetrated it. Such must have been the darkness before creation. It had
closed behind me. I knew I was invisible to the man at the helm. Neither
could I see anything. He was alone, I was alone, every man was alone
where he stood. And every form was gone, too, spar, sail, fittings,
rails; everything was blotted out in the dreadful smoothness of that
absolute night.

A flash of lightning would have been a relief--I mean physically. I
would have prayed for it if it hadn't been for my shrinking apprehension
of the thunder. In the tension of silence I was suffering from it seemed
to me that the first crash must turn me into dust.

And thunder was, most likely, what would happen next. Stiff all over and
hardly breathing, I waited with a horribly strained expectation. Nothing
happened. It was maddening, but a dull, growing ache in the lower part
of my face made me aware that I had been grinding my teeth madly enough,
for God knows how long.

It's extraordinary I should not have heard myself doing it; but I
hadn't. By an effort which absorbed all my faculties I managed to keep
my jaw still. It required much attention, and whi