One by one shivering forms straggle up from below, like reluctant
spirits answering a premature last call. Bare feet in slippers,
and shivering forms with overcoats over nightgowns, gradually
line the rails.
On the left there appears, apparently, a heavy, dark bank of
clouds:
"The Azores!" shouts down from the bridge your yellow-whiskered
captain, looking as cheerful and warm as though it were noon.
You watch, shiver and blink as the light grows stronger behind
the pinkish clouds in the east. The dark cloud settles into
solid land. You see it clearly. Sharply outlined against the
sky stands, forty miles long, a mammoth saw with huge teeth,
irregular, sharp. The power of old-time volcanoes made all of
that land, and those sharp saw-teeth, pointing toward the sky,
are the destroyers of long ago, cold and dead now, but telling
ominously of the power that lies hidden below.
Between you and the brightening sunrise, suspended in the "crow's
nest," half way up the mast, stands the sailor who watches the
sea for you through the night. He calls out, and ahead to the
left you see a small boat filled with human beings that seem
scarcely as big as your finger. Your ship could plough through
miles of such small boats-- but out there in the ocean, just as
well as inside the biggest court-house, LAW rules, and the big
ship must turn out for the small fishing boat.
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