As that thought came to her the medley of confusing noises around her—­the surging of the waves, the murmur of the wind, the shrieks of the drowning, and the noises made by the colliding of the various objects that were drifting around on the water—­all seemed to resolve themselves into words in the same way as shapeless clouds sometimes form themselves into pictures.  And this was what she heard: 

“It is a fact that death is easy, but to live, that is the difficult thing!”

“Ah, so it is!” she thought, and wondered what was needed to make living as easy as dying.

Round about her the shipwrecked people fought and struggled for the floating wreckage and the overturned boats.  But amid the mad cries and curses, again the noises resolved themselves into clear and powerful words: 

“That which is needed to make life as easy as death is UNITY, UNITY, UNITY.”

It seemed to her that the Lord of all the earth had converted these noises into a speaking tube, through which He himself had answered her.

While the words that had been spoken were still ringing in her ears, she was rescued.  She had been drawn up into a small boat in which there were only three persons besides herself—­a brawny old sailor dressed in his best, an elderly woman with round, owlish eyes, and a poor little heartbroken boy, who had on nothing but a torn shirt.

***

Late in the afternoon of the following day a Norwegian ship sailed along the great banks of Newfoundland in the direction of the fishing grounds.  The sky was clear, and the sea was like a mirror.  The vessel could make but little headway.  All the sails were set so as to catch the last breaths of the dying breeze.

The sea looked very beautiful.  It was a clear blue and smooth as glass, but where the faintest breeze passed over it, it was a silvery white.

When the afternoon stillness had continued for a while, the ship’s crew sighted a dark object floating on the water.  Gradually it came nearer, and soon they discovered that it was a human body.  As it was being carried by the current past the ship, they could tell by the clothing that it was the body of a sailor.  It was lying on its back, with eyes wide open, and with a look of peace on its face.  Evidently the body had not been long enough in the water to become disfigured.  It was as if the sailor were complacently letting himself be rocked by the tiny rippling wavelets.

When the sailors turned their gaze in the opposite direction, they let out a cry.  Before they could turn their faces, another body appeared on the surface close to the bow of the boat.  They came near passing over it, but at the last moment it was washed away by the swell.  Now they all rushed to the side of the ship and looked down.  This time they saw the body of a child, a daintily dressed little girl.  “Dear, dear!” said the sailors, drying their eyes.  “The poor little kiddie!”