The captain looked at me and said, "What do you know about navigation,
man?" pointing to the water that was being pumped out of the ship; "we are
sinking." "I know nothing about navigation," I replied. "Explain yourself,"
he said. Then I told my dream, and when I had finished speaking, I saw the
tears running down the weather-beaten cheeks of the pilots. Then the
captain said, "What kind of a man are you?" I answered, "An ordinary
minister." Then the pilot said to the captain, "We had better listen to
this man. He may be more right than we, because as long as this ship can
hold up, we are safe, but if we go into the boats in this fearful weather
and dark night, we shall soon be dashed to pieces against the rocks."
Then the pilot said to me, "Our ship sticks 28 feet in the water and the
rock we struck was only twelve feet under the water, so you see it is a
great miracle that our ship is not in two, and one end on each side of the
rock. Had that happened, no one would have known what became of us, for we
are now in 53 fathoms of water." Orders were then given not to lower the
life boats.
Then I said to the captain, "Is this the Tasso, that used to sail on Norway
24 years ago?" He replied, "No, that lays on the bottom of the sea six
miles from here. What about it?" I said, "I embarked on that ship at
Tronheim the 27th day of April on a Sunday afternoon at four o'clock, of
the year 1881, with 384 other young people who were sailing for England, on
our way to America. At nine o'clock we got into an awful snowstorm and just
lay drifting until one fifteen a.m., exactly the same time of night as we
struck the rock this time. We went on the rock and turned over on the side
just outside of the Agness lighthouse." Then the captain said, "What kind
of a man are you?" "Just an ordinary minister," I answered. The captain
then told me his father was captain of that ship at that time. (It might be
interesting to the reader to know that we lay on our side until almost six
fifteen in the morning when the ship straightened up as the tide arose.
Then they cut the anchor chain and we backed up and went our way.) Needless
to say, that night was one of the greatest prayer meetings ever held.
While I was speaking with the Captain, the first mate had come, a fine tall
Englishman. "Will you kindly go with me to the front end of the ship and
see if we can see any lights? We are lost. We don't know where we are." I
answered, "I know nothing about navigation sir." He said, "Please go with
me." I did, and coming out there, I saw three lights, and he could not see
any. He said, "Keep your eyes on them, and I'll run for the captain." They
both came running and the captain could not see the lights either. Turning
to me he said, "You must be mistaken." "No sir,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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