A sailor with a rope about his waist tried to walk across the deck, but was thrown along the wet and slippery boards like a ball tossed from the hands of a child.  In a queer set of outside garments that I have learned are called “oil-skins,” the crew, officers, and captain went to and fro, trying their best to keep things straight.

In some way I knew that the brave captain was not afraid.  A little pale he was, surely, but his voice was firm as he called through a strange fixture called the ship’s trumpet.  And his hands did not shake as he tried to peer through a great glass across the rolling sea.

The sailor with the rope about him was again and again tossed and tumbled about as he tried to make the passage across the deck, but as often as he tried his mates would have to pull on the rope and right him.  And I still think, as I did that night, that a ship’s crew, sailors, officers, and captain, are brave, brave folk,—­the bravest Folks I know.

As the storm went crashing on, I kept thrusting myself downward, in hopes to plunge lower than the storm circle.  No use.  I was upborne every time, and after many attempts knew it would be best to simply float as I must.

I had drifted far from the sailing-vessel, when, as I floated high on the crest of a wave, I looked upon a pleasure-craft of some kind, riding high upon the breakers.  Men who were not regular sailors looked with startled eyes on the terrible sea.  They were calm and quiet, but from the way they questioned the staunch skipper, and watched the men forming the crew, I knew they carried anxious hearts, and longed to see the waters grow calmer.

A hard fling sent me afloat again, and I had a peep inside the cabin, where ladies with white faces and clasped hands were whispering of the storm, and listening with fear in their eyes to the wild clamor of the winds.

Then there was a peep beyond that showed me something that to this day I cannot understand, but I tell it because my instincts assure me that boy-Folks and girl-Folks in good homes with good parents will know just what it meant.  And although I am only Lord Dolphin, a great fish of the sea, there was something about it that has comforted me, and I think always will comfort me as long as I live.

I saw a little girl, oh, a fair little creature, with fluffy, golden hair shading her babyish face, who was on her knees beside a white and gilded berth.

A berth, you know, is a small bed built right against the wall in any kind of a vessel, be it sailer, steamship, or yacht.  I think this was some rich man’s yacht.

The fair little lady, then, was on her knees beside her gilded berth, her elbows resting on the pretty white bed, eyes closed, tiny white hands clasped, and lips moving.  She surely was talking to some One, but Who I cannot even guess.

But this much was certain:  that child was not afraid.  Not in the least!  She must have wakened from sleep, else she would not have been alone.  And hearing the wild storm, she had slipped from her little bed, put herself on her knees, and raised her dear, fearless little hands and heart—­where?