Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/28

10 "Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth.… Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters.… I said I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked are before me. But it is also written that evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and He shall hear my voice…. They have prepared a net for my steps, my heart is bowed down…. But Thou hast a mighty arm, strong is Thy hand and high is Thy right hand.…"

While Captain Kendrick was voicing his troubles and his consolations in words wondrously framed by another strong man long ago, the purser of the Suwannee was sought out by Arthur Valentine, whose manner held a trace of uneasiness. He would not have confessed it, but far back in the young ship-owner's head was the glimmering notion that a terrier might be snapping at a mastiff. Was this imposing figure on the bridge the "dottering ass" to whom he had smartly dashed off his first official reprimand, gloating in the chance to test the sweep of his new