Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/89

Rh at the responsibility laid up on me. Might it not be (for we knew not what had happened in Europe and elsewhere) that we were risking the whole hope of the human race, or at least the sole remnants of its highest types, upon the chances of a single voyage, and exposing the whole stock of that inestimable plant, mankind, to the risk of destruction by fire or shipwreck? Well at least if this were so there would be none left to blame my rashness. But indeed I felt we were in the hands of Providence. In Faith, like the Egyptian sower of old, I would cast my corn upon the waters, trusting to find it increased and multiplied after many days.

I pondered upon these things till I dozed. As I passed into the land of dreams I seemed to hear a distant rushing sound that grew and grew, and then gradually died away. The cooler morning air swept my brow with restful touch and I knew no more.

Bright and cloudless dawned the day of our departure from our ancestral soil. Yet the glory of nature was dimmed, nay extinguished, by one more scene in the tragedy of sorrow. It was on this wise. From the moment of sunrise our people were busily