“What, old ‘Hallelujah’ Roberts? Is he still afloat? Good man, mark you, one of the best, and the Sweet Judy is a very trim vessel. The girl is in safe hands, depend upon it.” The captain smiled. “I hope she likes hymns, though. I wonder if he still makes the crew do all their swearing into a barrel of water in the hold?”

“Keenly religious, is he?” asked Mr. Black as they headed toward the warmth of the main cabin.

“Just a tad, sir, just a tad.”

“In the case of Roberts, Captain, how big is a ‘tad’?”

Captain Samson grinned. “Oh, something about the size of Jerusalem….”

At the other end of the world the sea burned, the wind howled, and roaring night covered the face of the deep.

It takes an unusual man to make up a hymn in a hurry, but such a man was Captain Roberts. He knew every hymn in The Antique and Contemporary Hymn Book, and sang his way through them loudly and joyously when he was on watch, which had been one of the reasons for the mutiny.

And now, with the End of the World at hand, and the skies darkening at dawn, and the fires of Revelation raining down and setting the rigging ablaze, Captain Roberts tied himself to the ship’s wheel as the sea rose below him and felt the Sweet Judy lifted into the sky as if by some almighty hand.

There was thunder and lightning up there. Hail rattled off his hat. St. Elmo’s fire glowed on the tip of every mast and then crackled on the captain’s beard as he began to sing in a rich dark baritone. Every sailor knew the song: “Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,” he bellowed into the storm, as the Judy balanced on the restless wave like a ballerina. “Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep… ”

How fast were they moving? he wondered as sails ripped and flapped away. The wave was as high as a church, but surely it was running faster than the wind! He could see small islands below, disappearing as the wave roared over them. This was no time to stop praising the Lord!