Curious and very touching were the changes that came over the feelings of the men. They had rejoiced when they were first becalmed, but now another sense was uppermost. The day was cold to starvation. Death was before them--slow, sure, relentless death. There could be no jugglery. Then 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 hands--let it rather be death, swift death, just or unjust. Thus despair took hold of them, and drove away all fear, and where there is no fear there is no grace. "_Share yn olk shione dooin na yn olk nagh nhione dooin_," said old Billy, and that was the old Manx proverb that says that better is the evil we know than the evil we do not know. And with such shifts they deceived themselves, and changed their poor purposes, and comforted their torn hearts. The cold, thick, winter day was worn far toward sunset, and still not a breath of wind was stirring. Gilded by the sun's hazy rays, the waters to the west made a floor of bleared red. The fishing-boat had drifted nearly ten miles to the south. If she should drift two miles more she must float into the south-eastern current that flows under Contrary Head. At the thought of that, and the bare chance of drifting into Peeltown Harbor, a little of the vague sense of hopelessness seemed to lift away. The men glanced across at Dan, and one murmured: "Let every herring hang by its own gill;" and another muttered: "Every man to the mill with his own sack." Davy Fayle lay on the deck a few paces from Dan. 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 dreamland, 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 eyes were bent.