minimize the amount of impending loss, regrets his premature
pessimism. The ship has been stauncher, the skies more merciful,
the seas less angry, or perhaps the men on board of a finer temper
than he has been willing to take for granted.

"The ship So-and-so, bound to such a port, and posted as 'overdue,'
has been reported yesterday as having arrived safely at her
destination."

Thus run the official words of the reprieve addressed to the hearts
ashore lying under a heavy sentence. And they come swiftly from
the other side of the earth, over wires and cables, for your
electric telegraph is a great alleviator of anxiety. Details, of
course, shall follow. And they may unfold a tale of narrow escape,
of steady ill-luck, of high winds and heavy weather, of ice, of
interminable calms or endless head-gales; a tale of difficulties
overcome, of adversity defied by a small knot of men upon the great
loneliness of the sea; a tale of resource, of courage--of
helplessness, perhaps.

Of all ships disabled at sea, a steamer who has lost her propeller
is the most helpless. And if she drifts into an unpopulated part
of the ocean she may soon become overdue. The menace of the
"overdue" and the finality of "missing" come very quickly to
steamers whose life, fed on coals and breathing the black breath of
smoke into the air, goes on in disregard of wind and wave. Such a
one, a big steamship, too, whose working life had been a record of
faithful keeping time from land to land, in disregard of wind and
sea, once lost her propeller down south, on her passage out to New
Zealand.