The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands

d swelling with the pride of costly merchandise within, each unmindful of the other, this ship remained floating there, destitute of cargo, either rich or poor, never in port, always on service, serene in all the majesty of her one settled self-sacrificing purpose--to guide the converging navies of the world safely past the dangerous shoals that meet them on their passage to the world's greatest port, the Thames, or to speed them safely thence when outward-bound. That unclipperly craft, moreover, was a gallant vessel, because its post was one of danger. When other ships fled on the wings of terror--or of storm trysails--to seek refuge in harbour and roadstead, this one merely lengthened her cable--as a knight might shake loose the reins of his war-horse on the eve of conflict--and calmly awaited the issue, prepared to let the storm do its worst, and to meet it with a bold front. It lay right in the Channel, too, "i' the imminent deadly breach," as it were, prepared to risk encounter with the thousand