And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from
the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah
sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat
downward again towards the tormented deep.
"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his
cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known.
The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions
of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring
the whole matter to high Heaven, they all-outward to casting lots,
to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them.
The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how furiously they
mob him with their questions. 'What is thine occupation?
Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now,
my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners
but ask him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only
receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answer
to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is
forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him.
"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries--and then--'I fear the Lord
the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!'
Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then!
Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession;
whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still
are pitiful.
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