A little after dark I was lying on a coil of ropes, napping it. The boys were having the Bay of Biscay quite lively, and I waked up on the jump in the choruses. Kent came up while they were telling "How she lay On that day In the _Bay_ of BISCAY O!" He was not singing. He sat down beside me, and first I thought I wouldn't trouble myself about him, and then I thought I would. So I opens one eye at him encouraging. He crawls up a little closer to me. It was rather dark where we sat, with a great greenish shadow dropping from the mainsail. The wind was up a little, and the light at helm looked flickery and red. "Jake," says he all at once, "where's your mother?" "In--heaven!" says I, all taken aback; and if ever I came nigh what you might call a little disrespect to your mother, it was on that occasion, from being taken so aback. "Oh!" said he. "Got any women-folks to home that miss you?" asks he, by and by. Said I, "Shouldn't wonder." After that he sits still a little with his elbows on his knees; then he speers at me sidewise awhile; then said he, "I s'pose _I_'ve got a mother to home. I ran away from her." This, mind you, is the first time he has ever spoke about his folks since he came aboard. "She was asleep down in the south chamber," says he. "I got out the window. There was one white shirt she'd made for meetin' and such. I've never worn it out here. I hadn't the heart. It has a collar and some cuffs, you know. She had a headache making of it. She's been follering me round all day, a sewing on that shirt. When I come in she would look up bright-like and smiling. Father's dead. There ain't anybody but me. All day long she's been follering of me round." So then he gets up, and joins the lads, and tries to sing a little; but he comes back very still and sits down. We could see the flickery light upon the boys' faces, and on the rigging, and on the cap'n, who was damning the bo'sen a little aft. "Jake," says he, quite low, "look here. I've been thinking. Do you reckon there's a chap here--just one, perhaps--who's said his prayers since he came aboard?" "_No!_" said I, quite short: for I'd have bet my head on it. I can remember, as if it was this morning, just how the question sounded, and the answer. I can't seem to put it into words how it came all over me. The wind was turning brisk, and we'd just eased her with a few reefs; Bob Smart, out furling the flying jib, got soaked; me and the boy sitting silent, were spattered. I remember watching the curve of the great swells, mahogany color, with the tip of white, and thinking how like it was to a big creature hissing and foaming at the mouth, and thinking all at once something about Him holding of the sea in a balance, and not a word bespoke to beg his favor respectful since we weighed our anchor, and the cap'n yonder calling on Him just that minute to send the Madonna to the bottom, if the bo'sen hadn't disobeyed his orders about the squaring of the after-yards.