“Thet’s good,” said Jordan.  “Big region this!”

And so the great-hearted man kept talking to try to lure Sedgwick’s mind away from the thoughts that possessed him, and which made his heart heavy and his face grave.

The ship touched at several ports, and the changing of passengers, the different races, the varying scenes, kept the minds of both men diverted and their interest all the time awakened, and kept Jordan talking more than he had talked before for weeks.

“I’m glad I cum, Jim,” he kept saying.  “Why, we fellers out in Texas as never traveled don’t know nuthin’, so ter speak; nuthin’ ’bout the world outside, I mean.  We useter think Texas wur almighty big.  Tain’t nuthin’.”

Then after a pause he spoke again, and his next question was:  “What did yo’ call them ships thet ther old fellers sailed?”

“They had many names.  There were Galleys, Biremes, Triremes.  Quadquirimes, Quinquirimes and so on, according to the number of their oars and the way they worked them,” answered Sedgwick.

“This are a daisy ship thet we is on, don’t you reckon?” said Jordan.  “Suppose yo’ and I cud uv cum along heah with this ship when they hed ther fightin’ fleets out?  Wouldn’t we hev astonished them old-timers?”

“I think we would, indeed,” said Sedgwick, “but, Tom, with the ships that they had, they did some fighting that gave the world such a thrill that men feel it still when the name of Actium or Salamis is mentioned.  As long before the coming of the Savior as it has been since, the Phoenicians were scouring this sea with their craft, founding colonies, and it is said they ventured out upon the Atlantic and went as far north as England, while amid the ruins of Tyre models of boats have been found with lines as fine as any that any modern ship-builder can draw.

“Nothing of mechanical achievement to me compares with a ship like this that we are sailing on.  Panoplied in steel, with heart of fire, with iron arms picking up the burden of ten thousand horses; facing the storm and the night without a quiver except that which comes of its own great heart’s throbbing, buoyant above the beating of the deep sea’s solemn pulses, lighted by imitation sunlight, and making its voyages almost with the precision of the hours—­what could be grander?

“Standing on the deck, with the midnight black above and the ocean black below, feeling its regular pulse-beats and its onward plunges over its uneven path; it is hard to shake off the impression that it is a grim Genie that has come to make ferries of the broad ocean, to draw the continents with their freights of nations closer together.

“But suppose, Tom, that the onward rush of this ship should bring us close beside three little ships, two with no decks and the larger one only ninety feet in length, we would look down upon them with a kind of pity, would we not?

“Still, with such vessels, the mystery of the sea was first cleared up; with such vessels, the vail was pushed back from the frowning face of the ocean; with such vessels, the New World was found.