Page:Semenoff V. The battle of Tsu-Shima.pdf/66

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE BATTLE OF TSU-SHIMA
29

could also be observed. And then it suddenly occurred to me that all this — the tall, somewhat bent figure of the Admiral on the side of the bridge, the wrinkled face of the man at the wheel stooping over the compass, the guns' crews chilled to the bone at their posts, these men talking loudly and running about, the giant connecting-rods whose steel glittered dimly in the dark, and the mighty hissing of steam in the cylinders was one and the same thing.

I suddenly remembered the old sea legend of the ship's spirit dwelling in every rivet, nail, and screw, which at the fated moment takes possession of the whole ship with her crew, and turns both crew and surroundings into one indivisible supernatural being. Of a sudden it seemed that this spirit was

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.