He picked up the book he had been reading--it was a volume of
Tennyson--and he sat with it on his knees staring at the white
sunlit main-deck barred with the white shadows of the standing
rigging.

The sea had disclosed to him a vision. Poetry, Philosophy, Beauty,
Art, the love and joy of life--was it possible that these should
exist in the same world as those?

He glanced at the book upon his knees, and contrasted the
beautiful things in it which he remembered with the terrible
things he had just seen, the things that were waiting for their
food under the keel of the ship.

It was three bells--half-past three in the afternoon--and the
ship's bell had just rung out. The stewardess appeared to take the
children below; and as they vanished down the saloon
companionway, Captain Le Farge came aft, on to the poop, and
stood for a moment looking over the sea on the port side, where a
bank of fog had suddenly appeared like the spectre of a country.

"The sun has dimmed a bit," said he; "I can a'most look at it. Glass
steady enough--there's a fog coming up--ever seen a Pacific
fog?"

"No, never."

"Well, you won't want to see another," replied the mariner,
shading his eyes and fixing them upon the sea-line. The sea-line