Again he tried to rise from the deck, but he was still held down, gasping and choking, by a crushing weight of wind. It would be a merciful thing if the ship went to the bottom. But even if it did his case might be no better. Then came the thought that this was what had happened. The ship had foundered, and this tempest and this appalling darkness were what he had heard the Reverend Rogers speak of, at a very nice tea party at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall to which he had once been invited, as "the life to come." Henry Harper remembered that "the life to come" was to be a very terrifying business for "those who had done evil," and according to the Reverend Rogers all men had done evil; moreover, he had dwelt at great length on the Wrath of the Supreme Being who was called God. Henry Harper was in the presence of God. This terrific wind in which it was impossible for any created thing to exist was the Wrath of the Supreme Being. Such a thought went beyond reason. It was a key which unlocked secret chambers in the inherited memory of Henry Harper. Many were the half remembered things of which he had had experience through former eons of time. The idea of God was the chief of these. Half mad with subconscious recollection, he began to crawl like a snake on his belly along the deck. The key was unlocking one chamber after another in his soul. Now he was a fire worshiper in a primeval forest; now he was cleansing his spirit in the blood of sacrifice; now he was kneeling and praying; now he was dancing round a pile of stones. He was flooded with a subconscious memory of world-old worship of the Unseen, a propitiation of the thing called God. He was a caveman in the presence of deity. Shuddering in every pulse of his being he pressed his face to the hot boards of the deck. The secret chambers of his mind were assailing him with things unspeakable. Even the Reverend Rogers could not have imagined them. All at once he rolled up against something soft in the darkness. With a thrill of hope he knew it was a living thing. It was a dago bereft like himself. Lying with his sweating face pressed to the deck, he also was in the presence of deity. The noise was too great for their voices to be heard, but each knew that the other was alive, and they lay side by side for two hours, contriving to save their reason by the sense of each other's nearness. After that time had passed they were able to crawl into shelter. Here they found others of the crew in varying states of terror and stupefaction. But it was now getting lighter, and the wind was blowing less. The worst was over. It seemed very remarkable that the _Margaret Carey_ was still afloat.