" He had intended to read "Lord, my heart is not haughty" after it,
though the light was fast failing, but at the hundred and seventy-sixth
verse he closed the book. Thus he sat in the nearly motionless air, gazing
on the ripples of the lagoon as, now singly, and now by twos or threes,
they glided up the beach tinged with the colors of parting day as with a
grace of resignation, and sank into the grateful sands like the lines of
this last verse sinking into his heart; now singly--"I have gone astray
like a lost sheep;" and now by twos--"I have gone astray like a lost
sheep; save thy servant;" or by threes--"I have gone astray like a lost
sheep; save thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments."
"I shouldn't tell that," he said to us, "if I didn't know so well how
little it counts for. But I knew at the time that when the next day but
one should bring the lighthouse steamer I shouldn't be any more fit to go
ashore, _to stay_, than a jellyfish." We agreed, he and I that there can
be as wide a distance between fine feelings and faithful doing as, he
said, "between listening to the band and charging a battery."
On the islet the night deepened. The moon had not risen, and the stars
only glorified the dark, as it, in turn, revealed the unearthly beauties
of a phosphorescent sea.
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