I sat down on the hatch-combing and rested my chin on my hands in black despair.
"He deserves to die," I cried out; "and God forgive me, I am not man enough to be his executioner." But Maud was by my side, passing her hand soothingly through my hair as though I were a child, and saying, "There, there; it will all come right.
We are in the right, and it must come right." I remembered Michelet and leaned my head against her; and truly I became strong again.

The blessed woman was an unfailing fount of power to me.
What did it matter?
Only a set-back, a delay.

The tide could not have carried the masts far to seaward, and there had been no wind.

It meant merely more work to find them and tow them back.

And besides, it was a lesson.