Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/178

 holy Cross. 'Oh bright, oh blissful altar!—holy Cross! red with the blood of the Lamb that washeth away the sin of the world; keep me from the snares of the Evil One in the day that the deep sea shall swallow me.'

Day after day—day after day the rising sun found this tender creature floating hither and thither upon the billows like an uprooted weed, throughout the Greek sea, to the Straits of Morocco: small and miserable was her fare; great and unceasing, whether awake or asleep, was her fear of death. If you ask why she was not drowned? or who preserved her at the feast? I answer, who saved Daniel in the horrible den of lions? when all, save him alone, were torn limb from limb. In Constance, the great and good God displayed a wonderful miracle, that his mighty works should be made known. For often by certain means, which to us appear dark, he accomplishes certain ends, that our ignorance and short sight cannot detect. She was preserved by a miracle, she was fed by a miracle, and so was she driven about the wide sea; till, at last, she was thrown ashore under a castle, far