Bellair took no risk, but placed his hand softly between the little ones. Something went out of him, leaving nothing but a queer, joyous vibration that held life together, with ample to spare to laugh with. The larger part of his identity seemed to be infused with the night, however. On one side of his hand, there was a warm, light seizure, rendering powerless his own little finger, and on the other side, his thumb was taken. He lifted his hand a little and the captor’s came with it--no waste of energy whatsoever, but with easy confidence of having enough and to spare. The man couldn’t breathe without laughing, but he was very quiet about it as the moment demanded, and his delight was nowise to be measured in recent history. He was bending forward close to the woman’s breast. Suddenly he remembered her--as if finding himself in a sanctuary.... The great pictures of the world had this _motif_, but the Third of the trinity was always invisible. Yet he had entered in this darkness, come right into the fragrance and the love-magnetism of it ... held there in two ineffable pressures. His low laughter ceased. He was full of wonder now, but could not stay. Out of the bewilderment of emotions he had the one sense--that he was not the third to this mystery--that the third must be invisible, as in the great _madonnas_ of paint. He betrayed the tiny grips with a twist, caught the child in his two hands and lifted him from the mother, sitting back in his own chair.... But the fragrance lingered about him and that wonderful homing vibration. He knew something of the nature of it now. It was peace. 4 The little blue jacket had come forth again as they ran down into the cold.... There was wild weather around the Horn, and Stackhouse was a sick monster from confinement. Bellair, who could drink a little for company through the glorious nights on deck, bolted from the cabin performance, and Captain McArliss was called to listen, and fell, as Stackhouse knew he would, for he had said to Bellair during one of their last talks: “Lest there appear among men a perfect sailor, they handicapped my McArliss--packed his inner barts in unslaked lime. Never will you see a thirst fought as he fights it. First he will drink with me, and you will hear him laugh; then he will drink alone, and there will be silence until he begins to scream. Already his eyes are tortured and his lips white. Bresently he will come and sit with me----” Bellair hated this; in fact the big master had begun to wear deeply. “I should think you would want to keep him on his feet--for the passage around the Horn.” “My McArliss is always a sailor,” said Stackhouse, rocking his head.