“A priest—­for the love of God—­the sacrament,” she whispered.

The man tore open the last canvas bread-bag.  It was tough material but it yielded to his insistence.  In the corner there was a single tiny crumb they had overlooked.  He lifted it gently with his great hand.  He held it up in the air a moment striving to think.  He was an English sailor and in his boyhood had been a chorister in a great Cathedral.  The mighty words came back to him.  He bent over the woman.

[Illustration:  The cry for bread.]

“Bread,” he whispered.  “The body—­”

He shattered the water breaker with his fist.  There was a suggestion of moisture on the inside of the staves of the cask.  He drew his finger across them and touched it to the woman’s lips.

“Water,” he said hoarsely.  “The blood—­”

The terror, the yearning, disappeared from the woman’s eyes.  She looked at the man sanely, gratefully.

“God bless—­” she faltered and then her lips stiffened.

Some tag of quaint old Scripture that had impressed him when he first heard it because of its very strangeness, but of which he had never thought in all the years of his rough life since boyhood, came into the man’s mind now.  He lifted his head as if to see again that figure.

“A priest forever,” he gasped, “after the order of Melchis—­”

He did not finish the word.  The woman was dead.  He knew now for what he had been kept alive.  His task had been performed.  He bowed his head in his hands and entered into life eternal with the others.

Presently a little cloud flecked the sky.  Out of the south the wind blew softly.  The smooth sea rippled blue and white in the gentle breeze.  The little boat, cradling its dead, rocked gently as it drifted on.

XI

The Stiller of the Storm

“Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid”

XI

The Stiller of the Storm

“It’s Christmas eve at home,” murmured the young lad after he had said his prayers and tumbled into his narrow berth on the great ship.  “I suppose they’re trimming the Christmas tree now and hanging up the stockings.  I wish I were there.”

He was very young to serve his country, but not too young according to the standards of mankind to be a midshipman on the great steel monster keeping the leaden deep.  It was the first time he had ever been away from home on Christmas day, too.  The youngsters had all laughed and joked about it in the steerage mess.  They had promised themselves some kind of a celebration in the morning, but in his own cot with no one to see, a few tears which he fondly deemed unmanly would come.  He had the midnight watch and he knew that he must get some sleep, but it was a long time before he closed his eyes and drifted off to dream of home and his mother.