were fierce pounding hours when the wrath of the sea seemed centred
upon the _Hydrographer_ and her lumbering barges, when the towing-lines
hummed like the harp strings of Aeolus.

It was man's work the crew of the _Hydrographer_ performed that night;
when the dawn came and the wind departed with a farewell shriek, and
the seas began to fall, Dan Merrithew sat quiet for a while, gazing
vacantly out over the gray waters, wrestling with the realization that
through all the viewless turmoil the face of a girl he did not
know--never would know, probably--had not been absent from his mind;
that the sound of her voice had lingered in his ears rising out of the
elemental confusion, as the notes of a violin, freeing themselves from
orchestral harmony, suddenly rise clear, dominating the _motif_ in
piercing obligato.

When he arose it was with the conviction that this meant something
which eventually would prove of interest to him. One evening some
three months before, he had visited the little sailors' church which
floats in the East River at the foot of Pike Street in New York, and
listened to a preacher who was speaking in terms as simple as he could
make them, with Fate as his text.

Fate, he said, works, in mysterious ways and does queer things with its
instruments. It may sear a soul, or alter the course of a life in
seeming jest; but the end proves no jest at all, and if we live long
enough and grow wise with our years, we learn that at the bottom, ever
and always, in everything, was a guiding hand, a sure intent, and a
serious purpose.

It was a good, plain, simple talk such as longshoremen, dock-rats,