Queer taverns of distant harbours will know it well.
Not many will care to be at sea that day, and few will risk being
driven by stress of weather on the Kaiser's night to the bergs of the
haunted part of sea.
And yet for all the grimness of the pale-blue phantom, with cuirass
and helmet and eyes shimmering on deadly icebergs, and yet for all the
sorrow of the wrong he did against man, the women drowned and the
children, and all the good ships gone, yet will the horrified mariners
meeting him in the mist grudge him no moment of the day he has earned,
or the coolness he gains from the bergs, because of the kindness he
did to the wounded men. For the mariners in their hearts are kindly
men, and what a soul gains from kindness will seem to them well
deserved.
Last Scene of All
After John Calleron was hit he carried on in a kind of twilight of the
mind. Things grew dimmer and calmer; harsh outlines of events became
blurred; memories came to him; there was a singing in his ears like
far-off bells. Things seemed more beautiful than they had a while ago;
to him it was for all the world like evening after some quiet sunset,
when lawns and shrubs and woods and some old spire look lovely in the
late light, and one reflects on past days.
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