Happened At The Wheel

Good Words: "Why no," said the mate, "I can't say that we're a bit more superstitious than other folk. You get into the moors and hills and you'i: j find landsmen quite as foolish as any i of us. I'll not deny that' there may have been a time - and yet l'm not very sure. That's true enough about steam anyway blue water isn't so lonely as il ! must have been when we were all under canvas. Seems to me it's loneliness that breeds superstition, and there is no loneliness like that of the high seas on a starry night. Stili things do happen now and again- things there's no accounting for. Ilere's a case now; I wonder what you would make out of tt? It was on a May night, something like fifteen years ago, and we wer coming up the channel. It was one of those queer nights when the stars are clear overhead, but everything about you's as black as your hat. We were bowling along with a fresh breeze that brought us a smel! of old England, and everything seemed shipshape and snug, when all of a sudden the lookout sent up a yell, and rlght ahead of us there was a flash of lights and a looming of a big shadow, black against the very darkness. The moment the lookout shouted there was a cry of 'Hard a-port!' and I gave the wheel a whirr to set it flying. I don't expect you to believe it, but make what you like of it, the wheel stuck as if it had been spiked. I flung all my strength on it: it was fixed like a stanchion. You can't guess what I feit at that moment, with that cry in my ears, and that big shadow rushing out of the darkness. Then two invisible hands, cold ae ice, were laid on mine with a steady grip, and the wheel was sent flying hard a-starboard. We swung up into the wind, and as we did so a great ocean liner paased us at almost leaping distance. Had we gone to port we should have been cut in two. No, I told you I couldn't account for h. I've wondered, too, at times, for our captain's brother was lost In the rhannl - run down just like that, too."