A few had noticed as twilight fell a brig in the offing, standing inshore as she tacked down channel.

She, no doubt, as they worked in their circle of torchlight, had sailed in close before going about, her crews gathered forward, her master perhaps watching through his night-glass had guessed the act, saluted it, and passed on her way unknown to her own destiny.
They strained their eyes.

A man beside Taffy declared he could see something--the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away.
Taffy could see nothing.

The voice ahead began to speak again.
The Vicar, pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page which he held close to his lantern.
"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.
"Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand.
"But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.
"For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.
"Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail; then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey." Here the Vicar turned back a page, and his voice rang higher: "Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.
"And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
"And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken." Now Taffy walked behind, thinking his own thoughts; for the cheers of those invisible sailors had done more than thrill his heart.
A finger, as it were, had come out of the night and touched his brain, unsealing the wells and letting in light upon things undreamt of.

Through the bright confusion of this sudden vision the Vicar's sentences sounded and fell on his ears unheeded.