But they were standing only two miles off Jurby Point when once more the wind fell to a dead calm. The men looked into each other's faces. Here was the work of fate. There was to be no flying away; God meant them to die on these waters. The sail flapped idly; they furled it, and the boat drifted south. Then one after one sat down on the deck, helpless and hopeless. Hours went by. The day wore on. A passing breath sometimes stirred the waters, and again all around was dumb, dead, pulseless peace. Hearing only the faint flap of the rippling tide, they drifted, drifted, drifted. Then they thought of home once more, and now with other feelings. Death was before them--slow, sure, relentless death. There was to be no jugglery. Let it be death at home rather than death on this desert sea. Anything, anything but this blind end--this dumb end; this dying bit by bit on still waters. To see the darkness come again and the sun rise afresh, and once more the sun sink and the darkness deepen, and still to lie there with nothing around but the changeless sea, and nothing above but the empty sky, and only the eye of God upon them, while the winds and the waters lay in His avenging hand. Let it rather be death--swift death, just death--there where their crime was attempted, and one black deed was done. Thus despair took hold of them and drove all fear away. Each hard man, with despair seated on his rugged face, longed, like a sick child, to lay his head in the lap of home. "What's it saying?" muttered the old man Quilleash, "'A green hill when far away; bare, bare when it is near.'" It was some vague sense of their hopelessness that was floating through the old man's mind as he recalled the pathetic Manx proverb. The others looked down at the deck with a stony stare. Danny still lay forward. When the speck that had glided along the waters could be seen no more, he had turned and gazed in silence toward the eastern light and the distant shores of morning. If madness be the symbol on earth of the tortures of the damned, Danny had then a few hours' blessed respite. He saw calmly what he had done and why he had done it. "Surely, God is just," he thought: "surely He will not condemn me; surely, surely not." Then, amid surging inward tears, which his eyes refused to shed, the simple lad tried to recall the good words that he had heard in the course of his poor, neglected, battered life. One after one they came back to him, most of them from some far-away and hazy dream-world, strangely bright with the vision of a face that looked fondly upon him, and even kissed him tenderly. "Gentle Jesus!" and "Now I lay me down to sleep"--he could remember them both pretty well, and their simple words went up with the supplicatory ardor of his great grown heart to the sky on which his longing eyes were bent.