What
we were then, will be as much in existence before Him, as what we are
now." They were no less comforted by this consideration, than I was
myself; and Miss Coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said,
"Captain Ravender, I was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man,
whom I dearly loved when he was honourable and good. Your words seem to
have come out of my own poor heart." She pressed my hand upon it,
smiling.
Twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days. We were in no want of
rain-water, but we had nothing else. And yet, even now, I never turned
my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine. O, what
a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death, the
shining of a face upon a face! I have heard it broached that orders
should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. I admire
machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be
for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face
of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and
true.
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