woman soared.


THE PESSIMIST

And the coward sat in his stern seat, terrified, his tongue
loosened with fright. He assured them there was no chance
in the world. He had had fourteen years' experience, and he
knew. First, they would have to row one and a half miles
at least to get out of the sphere of the suction, if they did not
want to go down. They would be lost, and nobody would
ever find them.

"Oh, we shall be picked up sooner or later," said some of
the braver ones. No, said the man, there was no bread in
the boat, no water; they would starve--all that big boatload
wandering the high seas with nothing to eat, perhaps for days.

"Don't," cried Mrs. Brown. "Keep that to yourself,
if you feel that way. For the sake of these women and chil-
dren, be a man. We have a smooth sea and a fighting chance.
Be a man."

But the coward only knew that there was no compass and
no chart aboard. They sighted what they thought was a
fishing smack on the horizon, showing dimly in the early
dawn. The man at the rudder steered toward it, and the
women bent to their oars again. They covered several miles
in this way--but the smack faded into the distance. They
could not see it any longer. And the coward said that everything