And now and again I thought of the poor devils on the yard. Well,
they belonged there by right, just as we belonged here by right in
this oasis of the cabin. I looked at Mr. Pike and wagered to myself
that half-a-dozen like him could master that stubborn foresail. As
for the Samurai, I was convinced that alone, not moving from his
seat, by a tranquil exertion of will, he could accomplish the same
thing.

The lighted sea-lamps swung and leaped in their gimbals, ever
battling with the dancing shadows in the murky gray. The wood-work
creaked and groaned. The jiggermast, a huge cylinder of hollow steel
that perforated the apartment through deck above and floor beneath,
was hideously vocal with the storm. Far above, taut ropes beat
against it so that it clanged like a boiler-shop. There was a
perpetual thunder of seas falling on our deck and crash of water
against our for'ard wall; while the ten thousand ropes and gears
aloft bellowed and screamed as the storm smote them.

And yet all this was from without. Here, at this well-appointed
table, was no draught nor breath of wind, no drive of spray nor wash
of sea. We were in the heart of peace in the midmost centre of the
storm. Margaret was in high spirits, and her laughter vied with the
clang of the jiggermast. Mr. Pike was gloomy, but I knew him well
enough to attribute his gloom, not to the elements, but to the
inefficients futilely freezing on the yard. As for me, I looked
about at the four of us--blue-eyed, gray-eyed, all fair-skinned and
royal blond--and somehow it seemed that I had long since lived this,
and that with me and in me were all my ancestors, and that their
lives and memories were mine, and that all this vexation of the sea
and air and labouring ship was of old time and a thousand times