Old
salts are more picturesque and companionable spinning yarns about the
stove in a shoemaker's shop than they are when one is obliged to live,
eat and sleep with them for four months in the crowded forecastle of a
fishing schooner. An ocean storm is a sublime spectacle, witnessed from
a position of safety on the land; but a storm on the ocean, experienced
in its very vortex from the deck of a tiny fishing boat, is thrilling
beyond description. "Ships that pass in the night" make interesting
reading; but if they pass near you, in a foggy night, on the Banks, they
are better than the muezzin of the Moslem in reminding a man that it is
time to pray. I recall with vividness the scene on such a night, and
still feel the compelling power of the panic in the voice of the
mild-mannered old sea dog on anchor watch, as he yelled down the
companionway, "All hands on deck." In six seconds we were all there; and
there was the great hulk of a two-thousand-ton ship looming up out of
the night. She had evidently sighted our little craft just in time to
change her course, and was passing us with not more than a hundred and
fifty feet to spare.
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