“Oh hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea,” he finished, and stopped and stared ahead.

There was something big and dark out there, coming closer very quickly. It would be impossible to steer around it. It was too big, and in any case the helm didn’t answer. He was holding it as an act of faith, to show God that he would not desert Him and hoped that in return God would not desert Captain Roberts. He swung the wheel as he began the next verse, and lightning illuminated a path across the restless wave — and there, in the light of the burning sky, was a gap, a valley or cleft in the wall of rock, like the miracle of the Red Sea, thought Captain Roberts, only, of course, the other way around.

The next flash of lightning showed that the gap was full of forest. But the wave would hit it at treetop height. It’d slow down. They might just be saved, even now, in the very jaws of Hell. And here they came….

And so it was that the schooner Sweet Judy sailed though a rain forest, with Captain Roberts, inspired to instant creativity, making up a new verse explicably missing from the original hymn: “Oh Thou who built’st the mountains high, To be the pillars of the sky — ” He wasn’t totally certain about built’st, but bidd’st was apparently acceptable — “Who gave the mighty forests birth” — branches cracked like gunshots under the keel, thick vines snatched at what remained of the masts —

“And made a Garden of the Earth” — fruit and leaves rained down on the deck, but a shudder meant that a broken tree had ripped away part of the hull, spilling the ballast — “We pray to Thee to stretch Thy hand” — Captain Roberts gripped the useless wheel tighter, and laughed at the roaring dark — “To those in peril on the land.”