Perhaps it was the calm that smote me most of all.

It was as the calm of one who had crossed chaos to bless poor sea-worn men with the word that all was well.
It was not the face of the fighter.

To my thrilled imagination it was the face of one who dwelt beyond all strivings of the elements and broody dissensions of the blood.
The Samurai had arrived, in thunders and lightnings, riding the wings of the storm, directing the gigantic, labouring _Elsinore_ in all her intricate massiveness, commanding the wisps of humans to his will, which was the will of wisdom.
And then, that wonderful Gabriel voice of his, silent (while his creatures laboured his will), unconcerned, detached and casual, more slenderly tall and aristocratic than ever in his streaming oilskins, Captain West touched my shoulder and pointed astern over our weather quarter.

I looked, and all that I could see was a vague smoke of sea and air and a cloud-bank of sky that tore at the ocean's breast.

And at the same moment the gale from the south-west ceased.