The ship slept. And the immortal sea
stretched away immense and hazy, like the image of life, with a
glittering surface and lightless depths. Donkin gave it a defiant
glance and slunk off noiselessly as if judged and cast out by the august
silence of its might.
Jimmy's death, after all, came as a tremendous surprise. We did not know
till then how much faith we had put in his delusions. We had taken his
chances of life so much at his own valuation that his death, like the
death of an old belief, shook the foundations of our society. A
common bond was gone; the strong, effective and respectable bond of
a sentimental he. All that day we mooned at our work, with suspicious
looks and a disabused air. In our hearts we thought that in the matter
of his departure Jimmy had acted in a perverse and unfriendly manner.
He didn't back us up, as a shipmate should. In going he took away with
himself the gloomy and solemn shadow in which our folly had posed, with
humane satisfaction, as a tender arbiter of fate. And now we saw it was
no such thing. It was just common foolishness; a silly and ineffectual
meddling with issues of majestic import--that is, if Podmore was right.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245