TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Dominik looking out to sea, aside from the other brethren, and he came up to me.

“You’renot hoping toseeProvidence there, areyou, dear brother?” he said.

“Every true Christian hopes the Lord will choose his soul and show him His countenance,” I stammered, caught off guard.

“We believe in Providence, so we won’t be surprised if it happens to one of us, don’t you think?” he continued energetically.

I glanced at Dominik, unsure of what to say. I tensed myself, suppressing my nausea from the rough sea. The open, gentle expression of his face was incongruous with the insistent tone of his voice. He then gave a hearty laugh when he realized my condition. I was amazed by that laughter, and that was my first impression of the man. Justwhenwe hoped thewaveswould subside, because the sunhad lit up the deck, the opposite happened. The clouds gathered and it grew dark again. We were ordered to go down into belly of the ship, where the galley slaves sat in the semidarkness, chained to the oars. We grabbed onto a beam in one corner of the underdeck and began to pray loudly. I had never heard anything like it: we prayed, the galley slaves sang, thunder boomed, crashing waves shook the body of the galley, its treenails creaked, and the roar and rumble was heightened by the rattle of chains, as the whole

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