In this starlit hour among the pine woods his life came to its meridian; everything that was him was at its best and greatest there.

Beneath him, on the talking tide of the river, lay the ships and equipment that represented years of steady effort and persistence; before him lay the pathless ocean which he meant to cross by the inner light of his faith.
What he had suffered, he had suffered by himself; what he had won, he had won by himself; what he was to finish, he would finish by himself.
But the time for meditations grows short.

Lights are moving about in the town beneath; there is an unwonted midnight stir and bustle; the whole population is up and about, running hither and thither with lamps and torches through the starlit night.

The tide is flowing; it will be high water before dawn; and with the first of the ebb the little fleet is to set sail.

The stream of hurrying sailors and townspeople sets towards the church of Saint George, where mass is to be said and the Sacrament administered to the voyagers.