You know there's something behind, and what's behind me is bigger'n what's behind you. . . ." He suddenly pulled his hand out of the capacious pocket of his coat, and the men cowered swiftly, but instead of a gun he held his Bible out over the rail, threatening them not with its insignificant fabric but with its unknown import. A couple of Jamaican negroes fell on their knees and writhed upon the deck, making uncouth noises, their eyes turning palely upwards, their limbs convulsed. "Praise de Lord!" they yelled. "Praise de Lord wid us, brudders! End of de world and judgment comin'. Save us, massa, save us. . . ." And a dago from the southern continent fell to crossing himself and gabbling his prayers. "You fools!" cried Lemaire, thrusting through the heaving knot of men, "don't you listen to his talk. Talk won't fill our stomachs or cure our skins. How's he going to feed you? Ask him dat." "Yes--what are we to eat? Give us food and we'll keep on!" shouted the bo'sun. "Can your God make food?" "My God provided manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness and He'll provide for us now if we trust in Him. He will send us meat for our bellies and drink for our throats." "How . . . ? Where is it, dis food?" taunted Lemaire; and Elderkin, his hand pointing, answered, "There . . ." The men swung round to gaze, and saw a fugitive gleam of sunlight on her shining tower of cotton canvas, a great four-masted American barque beating to windward only a few miles away. Elderkin and his ju-ju were saved, and Lemaire's vision of dollars was routed by the men's vision of food. The distress signals were run up, and by that night the _Spirito Santo_ carried enough provisions of a rude kind to last her, with care and luck--meaning a rigid discipline of practically wreck-rations and fair winds--to see her safely home again. Elderkin thought that at last the testings of his faith were over, that the weary ship would blow towards port on a divinely appointed wind, and that his sacrifice and conversion were accepted on high. For the image he had had in his mind on that day of revelation in the chart-house had been of one Titanic struggle, not of this succession of conflicts which sometimes rose to crisis point but more often meant fighting against the terrible depression of day after day's inaction, driven half-crazy by the unceasing moaning of the rigging. Sustained bad weather gets on a sailor's nerves not because of any danger but simply by dint of the repetition of noises; there is only one thing more unbearable to mind and temper, and that is to be becalmed. Thought of any such happening was far from those on board the _Spirito Santo_, for the south-westerly wind urged her on past the Plate, and then a baffling head wind blew her out of the treacherous skies, and for over a week she beat back and forth, making hardly any headway. The rations were still further reduced, and then just as the men were beginning to make trouble again,