The Shuttle : Large Print

No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and heavy weaving from shore to shore,that it was held and guided by the great hand of Fate.

Fate alone saw the meaning of theweb it wove, the might of it, and its place in the making of a world's history.

Men thoughtbut little of either web or weaving, calling them by other names and lighter ones, for thetime unconscious of the strength of the thread thrown across thousands of miles of leaping,heaving, grey or blue ocean.Fate and Life planned the weaving, and it seemed mere circumstance which guided theShuttle to and fro between two worlds divided by a gulf broader and deeper than thethousands of miles of salt, fierce sea-the gulf of a bitter quarrel deepened by hatred andthe shedding of brothers' blood.

Between the two worlds of East and West there was nowill to draw nearer.

Each held apart. Those who had rebelled against that which their soulscalled tyranny, having struggled madly and shed blood in tearing themselves free, turnedstern backs upon their unconquered enemies, broke all cords that bound them to the past,flinging off ties of name, kinship and rank, beginning with fierce disdain a new life.Those who, being rebelled against, found the rebels too passionate in theirdetermination and too desperate in their defence of their strongholds to be less thanunconquerable, sailed back haughtily to the world which seemed so far the greater power.Plunging into new battles, they added new conquests and splendour to their land, lookingback with something of contempt to the half-savage West left to build its own civilisationwithout other aid than the strength of its own strong right hand and strong unculturedbrain.But while the two worlds held apart, the Shuttle, weaving slowly in the great hand ofFate, drew them closer and held them firm, each of them all unknowing for many a year,that what had at first been mere threads of gossamer, was forming a web whose strength intime none could compute, whose severance could be accomplished but by tragedy andconvulsion.