"I am not rich, but this too is for Yasko." "Woman!" said the wayfarer now with astonishment, "thou hast many sons, but thou sendest gifts to only one of them. Dost thou love him more than the others? Is he the dearest one?" She raised her great sad eyes, filled with tears, and answered: "My blessing is for them all, but my gifts are to Yasko, for I am a mother, and he is my poorest son." A LEGEND OF THE SEA III A LEGEND OF THE SEA There was a ship named "The Purple," so strong and so great that she feared neither winds nor waves, even when they were raging most terribly. "The Purple" swept on, with every sail set, she rose upon each swelling wave and crushed with her conquering prow hidden rocks on which other ships foundered. She moved ever forward with sails which were gleaming in sunlight, and moved with such swiftness that foam roared at her sides and stretched out behind in a broad, endless road-streak. "That is a glorious craft," cried out crews on all other ships; "a man might think that she sails just to punish the ocean." From time to time they called out to the crew of "The Purple": "Hei, men, to what port are ye sailing?" "To that port to which wind blows," said the men on "The Purple." "Have a care, there are rocks ahead! There are whirlpools!" In reply to this warning came back a song as loud as the wind was: "Let us sail on, let us sail ever joyously." Men on "The Purple" were gladsome. The crew, confiding in the strength of their ship and the size of it, jeered at all perils. On other ships stern discipline ruled, but on "The Purple" each man did what seemed good to him. Life on that ship was one ceaseless holiday. The storms which she had passed, the rocks which she had crushed, increased the crew's confidence. "There are no reefs, there are no winds to wreck this ship," roared the sailors. "Let a hurricane shiver the ocean, 'The Purple' will always sail forward." And "The Purple" sailed; she was proud, she was splendid. Whole years passed--she was to all seeming invincible, she helped other ships and took in on her deck drowning passengers. Blind faith increased every day in the breasts of the crew on "The Purple." They grew slothful in good fortune and forgot their own art, they forgot how to navigate. "Our 'Purple' will sail herself," said they. "Why toil, why watch the ship, why pull at rudder, masts, sails, and ropes? Why live by hard work and the sweat of our brows, when our ship is divine, indestructible? Let us sail on, let us sail joyously." And they sailed for a very long period. At last, after years, the crew became utterly effeminate, they forgot every duty, and no man of them knew that that ship was decaying. Bitter water had weakened the spars, the strong rigging had loosened, waves without number had shattered the gunwales, dry rot was at work in the mainmast, the sails had grown weak through exposure. The voice of sound sense was heard now despite every madness: