It was very well to discuss prayer and treat it lightly and philosophically upon the deck of the _Korosko_.

It was easy to feel strong and self-confident in the comfortable deck-chair, with the slippered Arab handing round the coffee and liqueurs.

But they had been swept out of that placid stream of existence, and dashed against the horrible, jagged facts of life.

Battered and shaken, they must have something to cling to.

A blind, inexorable destiny was too horrible a belief.