"What you say is fact; I'd be the last to question it. Queer as his way has been, odd and circuitous as his warnings and suggestions, he has often grasped the truth and drawn the darkness from about it. But witness: All these matters dealt with the goings-on at Rufus Stevens' Sons; they had to do with things of record, with the accounts of the house, with the book of arithmetic. He was, no doubt, soundly trained in those things and so stands straight in them. But this," and Anthony nodded out the window, "is a region where he once was cast away, where his spirit sank in the stillness, and his blunting mind gave the darkness shapes no man had known. Many say Tom Horn is mad. I don't know. But if it is so then his distemper took form in this sea; so, when he talks of it, I balance his words with doubt. And if you did the like it would be a careful thing." "When he spoke of the chance of finding the ship _Rufus Stevens_, did he not speak of this sea?" asked the girl. "And yet you showed no doubt then; you thought it a thing to follow out with speed and hopefulness." "And I still think so," said Anthony. "For the chance of the ship being somewhere within the great ocean current, and of finally drifting into this slack sea, is a thing which comes of his arithmetic and not of his madness." She regarded him quietly for a moment. "When you wear that look," she said, "I cannot help but see things as you see them." Her hand rested upon the table quite near to him, and his own went out and rested upon it. "Keep your courage," he said. "You must not lose it because of the fears of a man whose wits are amiss. Hold to your first thoughts of good fortune, for a look like you wore brings luck to a ship." She was smiling now; and there was that brightness in her eyes that tears make. "I will be brave," she said. "Indeed, I will be more than that," her chin going out much as Anthony's own did on occasions. "I will be helpful." He looked at her with his heart quickening. "There is no one who could be more so than you, if you willed it so. Let your soul warm to what's ahead, for only strength of soul can conquer this stark place and bring our journey to a fortunate end." The sun burned its way across the sky, and the day began to wane; the mists rose once more from the great fields of decaying matter and sent their fanciful plumes into the air. "We do not seem any nearer to the hulks than we were this morning," said Corkery. "We approach them slowly," said Tom Horn. "But we are nearer, nevertheless. I was weeks in coming abreast of them. The current is slow here, but it is strong and does not give up. We must not struggle against it. Be warned by me. Flow with it peacefully. Let us give our minds to finding the ship we are in search of; let the current take us deep into the core of the circle; it will take us out again, as it took me after I had learned its secret." Corkery pointed to the mass of broken ships ahead.