flashing the electric light. He was unable
to sleep and passed most of the night on deck with the sentries. It
was noticed that he begged permission to "monkey" with the
electric-light signalling apparatus aft on the poop. When we began the
sail drill the following day, the attention of every man on the ship
was focused on the captain of the foretop, and at the order--"Away
aloft!" he sprang at the rigging like a cat. We stood from under.
There was a breathless hush as the second order was given--"Bear out
on the yard-arm!" It was the fatal order at which the other men had
lost their nerve and their lives! As it rang out over the old ship, we
gulped down our lumps and secretly thanked Him in the hollow of whose
hand lie the seas. The evolution was completed, and when the man of
the foretop descended to the deck, half a dozen men gripped Hicks, and
hugged him and kissed him with tears in their eyes.

Something really did happen in the foretop that day--something
happened to its captain, though nobody knew just what it was. He came
to the deck a changed man, and those who knew him best, felt it most.
We could not analyze it--he could not himself. I got into the secret
by accident. Some weeks later, it may have been months, an officer
from another ship was lunching with a friend in our wardroom. I served
the lunch and overheard the following conversation:

"Have you a signal man by the name of Hicks--Billy Hicks--on board?"

"Yes, what about him?"

"Well," the officer said, smiling, "we were ten miles out at sea a few
weeks ago when I noticed the signals flashing all over the heavens. I
was officer of the deck. It was about seven bells in the first watch.
I called my signal officer, told him to take down what he read." He
pulled out his notebook, still smiling and, spelling out the words,
read:

"_God this is Billy Hicks. I ain't afraid of no bloomin' man nor
devil. I ain't afraid of no Davey Jones bleedin' locker neither. I
ain't like a bawlin baby afussin' at his dad for sweeties. I doant ask
you for no favours but just one. This is it--when I strike the foretop
to-morrow let me do it with the guts of a man what is clean and God
dear God from this here day on giv me the feeling I use to have long
ago when I nelt at my mother's knee an said Our Father. Good night
dear God._"

I went out into the pantry of the wardroom, jotted down as much of
this as I could remember, and it gave me a splendid introduction to
the c