through unknown labyrinths the blind. All this is true; but the fact
that the learned professions have come into existence, and continue to
live and draw from the masses their material support--a tax greater in
amount than the income of the nations--shows that they meet, and
genuinely meet, a demand. I say genuinely, for 'You cannot fool all the
people all the time.' And so, my young friend, this poor man Peters
wants me. Later, if there is time, he will want the representative of
the religion which he professes, or which he remembers that his mother
or his father professed. I shall stand by his side and place my hand
upon his throbbing brow--and he will hope, and not despair. Who knows
whether or not our hope and our faith have power in some strange way to
link the present to the future, carrying forward the spirit-seed to
soil in which it blooms in splendor through eternity? As Byron says,

'How little do we know that which we are,
How less what we may be.'

But here we are; and I know by the face of that old neighbor-woman
looking from the doorway there that our man still lives."

We drew up in front of a small building some sixteen feet square, the
walls of which consisted of huge logs piled one upon another and
mortised at the corners. The doctor entered, leaving me seated in the
buggy. But soon he came to the door, and signalled for me. As I entered
the house I heard a voice say, "Yes, doctor, the old hulk's still
afloat--water-logged, but still afloat." Looking in the direction of the
voice, I saw on a bed in one corner of the room an old beardless man. I
had not a second's doubt that Dirk Peters of the 'Grampus,' sailor,
mutineer, explorer of the Antarctic Sea, patron and friend of A. Gordon
Pym, was before me. His body up to the waist was covered with an old