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diff --git a/old/60811.txt b/old/60811.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 462fb29..0000000 --- a/old/60811.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4794 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Great Waters, by Thomas A. Janvier - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: In Great Waters - Four Stories - -Author: Thomas A. Janvier - -Release Date: November 29, 2019 [EBook #60811] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN GREAT WATERS *** - - - - -Produced by Carlos Colon, The University of California and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/American -Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - - Transcriber's Notes: - - Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal - signs=. - - Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase. - - Blank pages have been eliminated. - - Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the - original. - - - - -[Illustration: - - See page 223 - - "HOME ALONG THE BEACH FOR THE SECOND TIME"] - - - - - IN GREAT WATERS - - Four Stories - - - By - - THOMAS A. JANVIER - - - Author of - - "The Uncle of an Angel" "The Aztec Treasure-House" - "The Passing of Thomas" "In Old New York" etc. - - - _ILLUSTRATED_ - - [Illustration] - - - NEW YORK AND LONDON - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1901 - - - - - Copyright, 1901, by HARPER & BROTHERS. - - _All rights reserved._ - November, 1901. - - - - - TO - - C. A. J. - - - - -Contents - - - PAGE - - THE WRATH OF THE ZUYDER ZEE 3 - - A DULUTH TRAGEDY 65 - - THE DEATH-FIRES OF LES MARTIGUES 135 - - A SEA UPCAST 171 - - - - -Illustrations - - - "HOME ALONG THE BEACH FOR THE SECOND TIME" _Frontispiece_ - - "HE WAS A CRAZED MAN" _Facing p._ 6 - - "IT WAS A STATELY DWELLING" " 24 - - OLD JAAP " 56 - - "'I HAVE LOVED YOU WITH MY WHOLE HEART'" " 126 - - MARIUS " 136 - - "THE OTHERS WERE UPCAST ON THE ROCKS" " 166 - - "THEN I COULD USE MY EYES TO LOOK BEHIND ME" " 220 - - - - -The Wrath of the Zuyder Zee - - -I - -Old Jaap Visser was mad. Out there on the island of Marken, in the -Zuyder Zee, he was the one madman, and a curiosity. The little -boys--all born web-footed, and eager as soon as they could walk to -toddle off on their stout little Dutch legs and take to the water--used -to run after him and jeer at him. An underlying fear gave zest to -this amusement. The older of them knew that he could lay a strange -binding curse upon people. The younger of them, resolving this concept -into simpler terms, knew that he could say something that would -hurt more than a spanking; and that would keep on hurting, in some -unexplained but dreadful way, beyond the sting of the worst spanking -that ever they had known. Therefore, while they jeered, they jeered -circumspectly. Out in the open--on the brick-paved pathways which -traverse the low marsh-land and unite the little knolls on which are -the villages: the Hafenbeurt (where the harbour is), the Kerkehof, and -the Kesbeurt--butter would not melt in their small Dutch mouths when -they met him. But when they had him at their mercy among the houses -of one or another of the villages things went differently. Then they -would yell "Old Jaap!" "Mad old Jaap!" after him--and as he turned upon -them would whip off their sabots, that they might run the more lightly, -and would dash around corners into safety: with delightful thrills of -dread running through their small scampish bodies at the thought of the -curse that certainly was flying after them, and that certainly would -make them no better than dead jelly-fish if they did not get around the -corner in time to ward it off! And old Jaap would be left free for a -moment from his tormentors, brandishing his staff in angry flourishes -and shouting his strange curse after them: "May you perish in the wrath -of the Zuyder Zee!" - -The young men and women of Marken, who never had known old Jaap save -as a madman, felt toward him much as the children did; though as -they got older, and came to understand the cause of his madness and -the effectiveness of his curse, their dread of him was apt to take -on a more serious cast. Even Krelis Kess, a notorious daredevil in -all other directions, and for a long while one of old Jaap's most -persistent tormentors, came in the end to treat him with a very -obliging civility. But then, to be sure, Marretje de Witt was old -Jaap's granddaughter--and everybody in Marken knew that this gentle -Marretje, because of her very unlikeness to him it was supposed, had -made capture of Krelis Kess's much too vagrant heart. One person, it -is true, did dissent from this view of the matter, and that was Geert -Thysen--who declared that Krelis was too much of a man really to care -for a pale-faced thing fit only to marry another oyster like herself. -And Geert's black eyes would snap, and her strong white teeth would -show in a smile that was not a pleasant one as she added: "A live man -who knows the nip of gin-and-water does not waste his time in drinking -weak tea!" But then, to quote the sense of the island folk again, -everybody in Marken knew that to win Krelis's love for herself Geert -Thysen would have given those bold black eyes of hers, and would have -said thank you, too! - -Among the old people of Marken, who had known old Jaap before his -madness came upon him, a very different feeling prevailed. They dreaded -him, of course, because they knew what his curse could accomplish; but, -also, they sorrowed for him--remembering the cruel grief which had come -upon him in his youth suddenly and had driven him mad. Well enough, -they said, might he call down his strange curse upon those who angered -him, for twice had he known the bitterness of it: when death, and again -worse than death, had struck at that which was dearer than the very -heart of him through the wrath of the Zuyder Zee. - -It all had happened so long back that only the old people had knowledge -of it--in the great storm out of the Arctic Ocean which had driven into -the Zuyder Zee the North Sea waters; and there had banked them up, -higher and higher, until the whole island of Marken was flooded and -half the dykes of the mainland were overrun. Old Jaap--who was young -Jaap, then--was afloat at his fishing when the storm came on, and his -young wife and her baby were alone at home. In her fear for him she -came down from the Kerkehof, where their home was, to the Hafenbeurt; -and there, standing upon the sea-wall that shelters the little harbour, -watching for him, was the last that ever was seen of her alive. When -his schuyt came in she had vanished--caught away by the up-leaping sea. -That was bad enough, but worse followed. A month later, when he was -at his fishing again--glad to be at work, that in the stress of it he -might a little forget his sorrow--his net came up heavy, and in it was -his dead wife. - -[Illustration: "HE WAS A CRAZED MAN"] - -Then it was that his madness fell upon him. By the time that he was -come back to Marken--sailing his schuyt for a long night through the -dark waters with that grewsomely ghastly lading--he was a crazed man. - - -II - -The shadow that rested on Jaap Visser's mind was a deep melancholy that -for the most part kept him silent, yet that was broken now and then by -outbursts of rage in which he raved against the cruel wickedness of the -sea. It did not unfit him for work. He had his living to make; and he -made it, as all the men of Marken made their living, by fishing. But -those who sailed with him in his schuyt said that always as the net -came home he hauled upon it with tight-shut eyes; that always, as it -was drawn inboard, he turned away--until the thrashing of the fish and -some word about the catch from his companions assured him that he might -look without fear of such a sight as that which had flashed burning -through his eyes and had turned his brain. - -When he was on land he spent little time in his own home: of which, and -of the baby motherless, his mother had taken charge. Usually he was to -be found within or lingering near the graveyard that lies between the -Kerkehof and the Hafenbeurt: an artificial mound, like those whereon -the several villages on the island are built, raised high enough -to be above the level of the waters which cover Marken in times of -great storm. Before this strange habit of his had become a matter of -notoriety, a dozen or more of the islanders, as they passed at night -along the path beside the graveyard, had been frightened pretty well -out of their wits by seeing his tall figure rise from among the graves -suddenly and stand sharply outlined against the star-gleam of the sky. - -But in those days, as I have said, his madness was no more than a -sombre melancholy--save for his fitful outbursts of rage against the -sea. The bitterness that came into his heart came later: when his -daughter was a woman grown and Jan de Witt married her--and presently -deserted her, as was known openly, for an Edam jade over on the -mainland. Things went worse and worse for a while: until one day when -old Jaap--even then they were beginning to call him old Jaap--fell into -a burning rage with his son-in-law and cursed him as he deserved for -the scoundrel that he was. - -It was down at the dock that the two men came together. The schuyts -were going out, and Jan was aboard his own boat making ready to cast -off. Half the island folk were there--the fishermen about to sail, and -their people come to see them get away. Some one--who did not see old -Jaap standing on the piling near where Jan's boat lay--called out: "The -fishing is good off Edam still, eh, Jan?" And then there was a general -laugh as Jan answered, laughing also: "Yes, there's good fishing off -Edam--better than there is nearer home." - -At this old Jaap broke forth into a passionate outburst against his -son-in-law: calling him by all the evil names that he could get -together, crying out against his wickedness and his cruelty, and -ending--as Jan's boat slid away from her moorings, with Jan standing at -the tiller laughing at the old man's fury--by calling out with a deep -grave energy, in strange contrast with his previous angry ravings: "God -cannot and will not forgive. He will judge you and He will punish you. -In His name I say to you: May the might of the angered waters be upon -you--may you perish in the wrath of the Zuyder Zee!" - -There was such a majesty in old Jaap's tone as he spoke those words, -and such intense conviction, that all who heard him were thrilled -strangely. Some of the old men of Marken, who were there that day, -still will tell you that it seemed as though they heard the voice of -one who truly was the very mouth-piece of God. Even Jan, they say, -paled a little; but only for a moment--and then he was off out of the -harbour with a jeer and a laugh. - -But that was Jan's last laugh and jeer at his father-in-law, and his -last sight of Marken. The next day the boats came hurrying home before -a storm, but Jan's boat did not come with them. At first it was thought -that he had put into the canal leading up to Edam--it was about there -that the other fishermen had lost sight of him--but a couple of days -later his boat drifted ashore, bottom upward, in the bight of Goudzee -south of Monnikendam. That left room for guess-work. Certainty came at -the end of a fortnight: when the two men who had been with him got back -to Marken--after a trip to England in the steamer that had picked them -up afloat--and told how the schuyt had gone over in the gale and spilt -them all out into the sea. As for Jan, he never came back at all. As he -and the other two men were thorough good sailors, and as the survivors -themselves were quite at a loss to account for their catastrophe, there -was only one way to explain the matter: old Jaap's curse had taken -effect! - -After that old Jaap had a place still more apart from the other -islanders. What he had done to one he could do to another, it was -whispered--and thenceforward he was both shunned and dreaded because of -the power for life and death that was believed to be his. The reflex of -this popular conviction seemed to find a place in his own heart, and -now and again he would threaten with his curse those who got at odds -with him. But he never uttered it; and the fact was observed that even -in the case of the teasing little boys he was careful not to curse any -one of his tormentors by name. - - -III - -Certainly, if ever old Jaap had cursed any particular little boy it -would have been Krelis Kess--who was quite the worst boy on the island, -and who usually was the leader of the troop that hung about the old -man's heels. - -And even when Krelis got to be a big young fellow of twenty--old enough -to go on escapades in Amsterdam of which the rumour, coming back to -Marken, made all steady-going folk on the island look askance at -him--he still took an ugly pleasure, as occasion offered, in stirring -up old Jaap's wrath. If the old man chanced to pass by while he was -sitting of a Sunday afternoon in Jan de Jong's tavern, drinking more -gin-and-water than was good for him, it was one of his jokes to call -out through the open window "Mad old Jaap!" in the shrill voice of a -child; and to repeat his cry, with different inflections but always -in the same shrill tones, until the old man would go off into a fury -and shout his curse at the little boys who seemed to be so close -about him but who could not anywhere be seen. At that Krelis would -fall to laughing mightily, and so would the loose young fellows his -companions--who had found out that that would send his hand to his -pocket and give them free drinks all around. - -Under such conditions it is not surprising that the wonder, and also -the regret, of these young scapegraces was very great when on a certain -Sunday afternoon in mid-spring time Krelis not only did not volunteer -his usual pleasantry at old Jaap's expense--as the old man came -shambling up the narrow street toward the tavern--but actually refused -to practise it when it was suggested to him. And the wonder grew to -be blank astonishment, a minute later, when he went to the window and -begged Herr Visser to come in and have a glass of schnapps with him! -To hear old Jaap called "Herr Visser" by anybody was enough to stretch -to the widest any pair of Marken ears; but to hear him addressed in -that stately fashion by Krelis Kess was enough to make any Marken man -believe that his ears had gone crazy! - -At first the young scamps in the tavern were quite sure that Krelis -was about to play some new trick on old Jaap, and that this wonderful -politeness was the beginning of it. But the marvel increased when -the old man--who liked schnapps as well as anybody--joined the little -company of tosspots and was treated by Krelis with as much respect as -though he had been a burgomaster! And more than that, when the session -was ended--and old Jaap, to whom such treats came rarely, was so far -fuddled that he could not manage his legs easily--Krelis said that -nothing could be pleasanter than a walk across to the Kerkehof in the -cool of the evening, and so gave him a steadying arm home. As the two -set off together the young fellows left behind stared at each other in -sheer amazement; and such of the Marken folk as chanced to meet this -strangely assorted couple marching amicably arm in arm together were -inclined to disbelieve in their own eyes! - -For a week, while they all were away at their fishing, there was a lull -in the excitement; but it was aroused again the next Sunday when Krelis -did not come as usual to the tavern--and went to a white heat when a -late arrival, a young fellow who lived in the Kerkehof, told that as he -came past Jaap Visser's house he had seen Krelis sitting on the bench -in front of it talking away with old Jaap and making eyes behind old -Jaap's back at Marretje. At first, being so entirely incredible, this -statement was scouted scornfully; but it aroused so lively a discussion -that presently the whole company left the tavern and went over in a -body to the Kerkehof bent upon disproving or verifying it--and there, -sure enough, were old Jaap and Krelis smoking their pipes together, and -Marretje along with them, on the bench in front of old Jaap's door! - -Young Jan de Jong--the son of the tavern-keeper--expressed the feelings -of the company when he said, later, that as they stood there looking at -that strange sight you might have knocked down the whole of them with -the flirt of a skate's tail! But they did not stop long to look at it. -Krelis glared at them so savagely, and his big fists doubled up in so -threatening a fashion, that they took themselves off in a hurry--and -back to the tavern to talk it over, while they bathed their wonder in -very lightly watered gin. - - -IV - -That was the beginning of Krelis Kess's courting of Marretje de -Witt--about which, in a moment, all the island blazed with talk. -Until then, in a light-loving way, Krelis had been keeping company -with Geert Thysen. That seemed a natural sort of match, for Geert and -Krelis had much the same bold way with them and well enough might have -paired. But Geert, like Krelis, had a devil of a temper, and it was -supposed that an angry spat between them had sent Krelis flying off in -a rage from her spit-firing--and that the gentle Marretje had caught -his heart on the rebound. The elders, reasoning together out of their -worldly wisdom, perceived that under the law of liking for unlike this -bold-going young fellow very well might be drawn toward a maiden all -gentleness; and that, because of her gentleness, Marretje would find a -thrilling pleasure in the strong love-making with which Krelis would -strive to take her heart by storm. All that, as they knew, was human -nature. Had they known books also they would have cited the case of -Desdemona and the Moor. - -However, there was not much time for talking. Krelis was not of the -sort to let grass grow under his feet in any matter, and in a love -matter least of all. Nor were there any obstacles to bar his way. He -had his own boat, that came to him when his father was drowned; and he -had his own house in the Kesbeurt, where he had lived alone since his -mother had ended a notably short widowhood by marrying a second time. -Old Jaap, moreover, was ready enough to accept as a son-in-law the only -man in Marken who ever had styled him Herr Visser, and who in addition -to that unparalleled courtesy had given him in quick succession nearly -a dozen bottles of the best Schiedam. There was nothing to hinder the -marriage, therefore, but Marretje's shyness--and Krelis overcame that -quickly in his own masterful way. - -And so everybody saw that matters were like to come quickly to a -climax--everybody, that is, except Geert Thysen, who said flatly that -the marriage was both impossible and absurd. Geert had her own notion -that Krelis was serving her out for her hard words to him, and was only -waiting for a soft word to come back to her--and she bit those full red -lips of hers with her strong teeth and resolved that she would keep -him waiting until he was quite in despair. Then, at the very last, she -would whistle him back to her--with a laugh in his face first, and then -such a kiss as all the Marretjes in the world could not give him--and -the comedy of his mock courtship would be at an end. Sometimes, to be -sure, the thought did cross her mind that Krelis might not come to her -whistle. Then the color would go out of her red cheeks a little, and -as she ground her big white teeth together she would have a half-formed -vision of Krelis lying dead somewhere with a knife in his heart. But -visions of this sort came seldom, and were quickly banished--with a -sharp little laugh at her own folly in fancying even for an instant -that Krelis could hesitate in choosing between herself and that limp -pale doll. - -And then, one day, she found herself face to face with the fact that -Krelis had not been playing a comedy at all. The news was all over the -island that he and Marretje were to be married the next Sunday; and -that he meant to be married handsomely, with a great wedding-feast at -Jan de Jong's tavern in Jan de Jong's best style. "So there's an end of -your lover for you, Geert Thysen!" said Jaantje de Waard, who brought -the news to her. - -At this Geert's red cheeks grew a little redder, and her big black eyes -had a brighter flash to them; but she only laughed as she answered: -"It's one thing to lay the net--but it's another to haul it in!" And -Jaantje remembered afterward what a strange look was in her face as she -said those strange words. - - -V - -The wedding was the finest that had been known in Marken for years. At -the church the parson gave his "Golden Clasp" address, which was the -most beautiful of his three wedding addresses and cost five gulden. -Then the company streamed away along the brick-paved pathway from the -Kerkehof to the Hafenbeurt, with the sunshine gleaming gallantly on the -white caps and white aprons of the women and on the shiny high hats -of the men, while the wind fluttered the little Dutch flags--and they -all walked much more steadily then than they did when they took their -after-breakfast walk, before the dancing began. In that second walk -the men's legs wavered a good deal, and some of them had trouble in -steering the stems of their long pipes to their mouths. But that is not -to be wondered at when you think what a breakfast it was! Jan de Jong -fairly excelled himself. They talk about it in Marken to this day! - -While the wedding-party walked unsteadily abroad the big room in the -tavern was cleared; and when the company was come back again, much the -better for fresh air and exercise, the dancing began. And just then a -very queer thing happened: Krelis led off the dance with Geert Thysen -instead of with Marretje his bride! - -Some say that Geert made him promise to do this as the price of her -coming to the wedding; others say that it was done on the spur of the -moment--was one of Geert's sudden whims that Krelis, who also was given -to sudden whims, fell in with. About the truth of this matter there -can be only guess-work, but about what happened there is plain fact: -Just as the set was forming, Krelis dropped Marretje's hand and said -lightly: "You won't mind, Marretje, will you? It's for old friendship's -sake, you know." And with that he took the hand of Geert Thysen, who -was standing close beside him, and away he went with her in the dance. -Those who think that it had been arranged between them beforehand point -out that Geert had refused all offers to dance and had come close to -Krelis just as the set was formed. There is something in that, I think. -But whether they had planned it or had not planned it, the fact remains -that Marretje's place at the head of the dance at her own wedding was -taken by another woman; and as the set was complete without her, she -did not dance at all until the first figure came to an end. They say -that there were tears in her eyes as she stood alone there--and that -she was very white when Krelis took her hand again, at the end of the -first figure, and gave her for the rest of the dance the place at the -head of it that was hers. They say, too, that Geert stood watching -them--when Krelis had left her and had taken his bride again--with a -hot blaze of color coming and going in her cheeks, and with a wonderful -flashing and sparkling of her great black eyes. And before the dance -ended Geert went home. - -There was a great crackling of talk, of course, about this slight that -Krelis had put upon Marretje on her wedding-day; and people shook their -heads and said that worse must come after it. Some of the stories about -Krelis's escapades in Amsterdam were raked up again and were pointed -with a fresh moral. As for Geert, the Marken women had but one opinion -of her--and the least unkindly expression of it was that she was -walking in a very dangerous path. But when echoes of this talk came to -Geert's ears--as they did, of course--she merely curled her red lips -a little and said that as she was neither a weak woman nor a foolish -woman she was safe to walk where she pleased. - - -VI - -It was a little disconcerting to the prophets of evil that the weeks -and the months slipped away without any signs of the fulfilment of -their prophecies. However keen may have been Marretje's sorrow on -her wedding-day, it was not lasting. Indeed, her gentle nature was -so filled with a worshipping love for Krelis that he had only to -give her a single light look of affection or a half-careless kiss to -fill her whole being with happiness. He was a god to her--this gayly -daring young fellow who had raised her up to be a shy little queen -in a queendom, she was sure, such as never had been for any other -woman in all the world. And Krelis was very well pleased with her -frank adoration. It was tickling to his vanity that she should be so -completely and so eagerly his loving slave. - -Next to her love for Krelis--and partly because it was a part of her -love for him--Marretje's greatest joy was in her housekeeping. She -had taken a just pride in the tidiness of her housekeeping for her -grandfather; but it was a very different and far more exciting matter -to furbish and polish a house that really was her own. And Krelis's -house, of which she was the proud mistress, was far bigger and far -finer than her old home. It was a stately dwelling, for Marken, -standing on an out-jutting ridge of earth at the back of the Kesbeurt, -close upon a delightful little canal--and from the back doorway was a -restful far-off outlook over the marsh-land to the level horizon of -the Zuyder Zee. Marretje loved that outlook, and she had it before her -often: for down beside the canal was her scouring-shelf--where she -scoured away through long sunny mornings, while Krelis was away at his -fishing, until her pots and kettles ranged in the sunlight shone like -burnished gold. - -Yet the fact should be added that when the old men of Marken talked -together about this fine house of Krelis Kess's they would shake their -heads a little--saying that a better spending of money would have been -for a smaller house founded on solid piling, instead of for this showy -dwelling standing on an out-thrust earth bank which well enough might -crumble away beneath it in some time of tremendous tempest when all -the island should be overswept and beaten by the sea. - -For the most part, of course--save for little chats with her -neighbours--Marretje was alone in that fine house of hers. Old Jaap had -come to live with the young people--as was only fair, since he had no -one but his granddaughter to care for him--but both he and Krelis spent -all their week-days afloat at their fishing and only their Sundays at -home. Yet now and then the old man, making some excuse for not going -out with the fleet, would give himself a turn at shore duty; and would -sit in his big chair, smoking his long pipe very contentedly, watching -his granddaughter at her endless scouring and cleaning, and listening -to her little bursts of song. In his unsettled old mind he sometimes -fancied that the years had rolled backward and that he was watching -his own young wife again; and in his old heart he would dream young -love-dreams by the hour together--blessedly forgetting that the love -and the happiness which had made his life beautiful had been snatched -away from him and lost forever in the wrathful waters of the Zuyder Zee. - -[Illustration: "IT WAS A STATELY DWELLING"] - -But Marretje's love-dreams were living ones. As Krelis lounged over -his pipe of a Sunday morning, taking life easily in his clean Sunday -clothes, he would say an airy word or two in praise of her housekeeping -that fairly would set her to blushing with happiness--and what with the -colour in her fair face and the light in her blue eyes she would be so -entirely charming that Krelis's own eyes would go to sparkling, and he -would draw her close to him and fondle her in a genuinely loverlike -fashion that would fill her with a very tender joy. Krelis was quite -sincere in his love-making. His little Marretje's soft beauty, and her -shy delight in his caresses, went down into an unsounded depth and -touched an unknown strain of gentleness in his easy-going heart. - -But even on the first Sunday after they were married Krelis went off -after dinner--it had been a wonder of a dinner that Marretje had -cooked for him: she had been planning it the week through!--to join -his companions as usual at Jan de Jong's. This came hard on Marretje. -She had been counting so much on that afternoon! A dozen little tender -confidences had been put aside during the morning to be made then -comfortably: when the dinner things would all be cleared away, and her -grandfather would have gone to take his usual Sunday look at his boat, -and she and Krelis would be sitting at their ease--delightfully alone -together for the first time in their lives! - -She had thought it all out, and had arranged in her own mind that they -would sit on the steps above her scouring-shelf--at the back of the -house and hidden away from everybody--with the canal at their feet, -and in front of them the level loneliness of the marsh-land stretching -away and losing itself in the level loneliness of the sea. She had -a cushion all ready for Krelis to sit on, and a smaller cushion for -herself that was to go on the next lower step--and she blushed a little -to herself as she thought how she would make a back to lean against out -of Krelis's big knees. And then, just as she had finished her clearing -away and was getting out the cushions, Krelis put on his hat and said -that he thought he would step across to the tavern and have a look at -the boys. The boys would laugh at him, he said, if he settled right -down into being an old married man--and he tried to give a better -send-off to this small pleasantry by laughing at it himself. But he -did not laugh very heartily, and he almost turned back again when he -got to the bridge--thinking how the light of happiness which had made -Marretje's face so beautiful through that Sunday morning suddenly had -died out of it as he came away. And then he pulled himself together -with the reflection that she would be all right again when he got back -to her at supper-time, and so went on. When he was come to the tavern -he forgot all about Marretje's unhappiness, for the boys welcomed him -with a cheer. - -Being in this way forsaken, Marretje carried out what was left of her -broken plan forlornly--arranging the cushions on the two steps, and -sitting on the lower one with her elbow resting on the upper one, and -gazing out sorrowfully across the marsh-land and the sea. That great -loneliness of sedge and sea and sky made her own loneliness more -bitter: and then came the hurting thought that just a week before, very -nearly at that same hour, Krelis still more cruelly had forsaken her -while he led with Geert Thysen their wedding-dance. - -After a while old Jaap came home and seated himself beside her. He was -silent, as was his habit, but having him that way soothed and comforted -her. As she leaned her head against his shoulder and held his big bony -hands the old man went off into one of his dream-fancies that his -young wife was beside him again--and perhaps, in some subtle way, that -also helped to take the sting out of her pain. When Krelis came home at -supper-time, walking a little unsteadily, he did not miss her flow of -chattering talk that had gone on through the morning; and presently it -began again--for Krelis returned in high good-humour, and his fire of -pretty speeches and his kisses quickly brought happiness back to her -sore little heart. Knowing thereafter what to expect of a Sunday, her -pleasure was less lively--but so was her pain. - - -VII - -It was a little past the turn of the half-year after the wedding that -the prophets of evil pricked up their ears hopefully--as there began to -go humming through Marken a soft buzz of talk about the carryings on -of Geert Thysen and Krelis Kess. It was only vague talk, to be sure; -but then when talk of that sort is vague there is the more seaway -for speculation and inference. All sorts of rumours went flashing -about--and carried the more weight, perhaps, because they could not -be traced to a starting-point and were disavowed by each person who -passed them on. The sum of them became quite amazing before long! - -In the end, of course, this talk worked around to Marretje. Bit by -bit, one kind friend after another brought her variations of the same -budget of news, pleading their friendship for her as the excuse for -their chattering; and all of them were a good deal disconcerted by the -placid way, with scarcely a word of comment, in which she suffered them -to talk on. Only when they took to saying harsh things about Krelis -did they rouse her a little. Then she would stop them shortly, and -with a quiet insistence that put them in an awkward corner, by asking -them to remember that it was her husband whom they were talking about, -and that what they were saying was not fit for his wife to hear. This -line of rejoinder was disconcerting to her interlocutors. To be put -in the wrong, that way, while performing for conscience' sake a very -unpleasant duty, could not but arouse resentment. Presently it began -to be said that Marretje was a poor-spirited thing upon whom friendly -sympathy was thrown away. - -Perhaps it was because Marretje was not feeling very strong just then -that she took matters so quietly. Certainly she had not much energy -to spare, and her days went slowly and heavily. Even on the Sunday -mornings when she had Krelis at home with her--and a good many of his -Sundays were spent away from the island, in order, as he explained, -that he might get off on the Mondays earlier to his fishing--she found -it hard to keep up the laughing talk and the light-hearted way with him -that he seemed to think always were his due. When she flagged a little -he told her not to be sulky--and that cut her sharply, for she thought -that he ought to feel in his own heart how very tenderly she was loving -him in those days, and how earnestly she was longing for a tender and -sustaining love in return. - -It is uncertain how much of all this old Jaap understood, but a part -of it he certainly did understand. In some matters his clouded brain -seemed to work with a curious clearness, and especially had he a -strange faculty for getting close to troubled hearts. Many there were -in Marken, on whom sorrow had fallen, who had been comforted by his -sympathy; and who had found it the more soothing and helpful because -it was given with no more than a gentle look or a few gentle words. -In this same soft way, that asked for no answer and that needed none, -he comforted Marretje in that sad time of her loneliness. Many a day, -when the other fishermen kept the sea, he kept the land--letting his -boat go away to the fishing without him while he made company at home -for his granddaughter, and even helped her in the heavier part of her -house-work with his big clumsy old hands. These awkward efforts to -serve her touched Marretje's heart very keenly--yet also added a pang -to her sorrow because of her longing that Krelis might show his love -for her in the same way. - -But old Jaap had his work to do at sea, and Marretje had to make the -best of many and many a weary and lonely day. Being in so poor a way -she could busy herself but little with her house-work--nor was there -much incentive to scour and polish since Krelis had ceased to commend -her housekeeping; and, indeed, was at home so little that he was -indifferent as to whether she kept her house well or ill. - -And so she spent much of her time as she had spent that first lonely -Sunday afternoon--sitting on the steps above her scouring-shelf, -looking out sadly and dreamily across the marsh-land and the sea. Or -she would walk slowly to the end of the village, where rough steps -went down to a little-used canal, and there would lean against the -rail while she gazed steadfastly across the marshes seaward--trying to -fancy that she could see the fishing fleet, and trying to build in her -breast little hope-castles in which Krelis again was all her own. They -comforted her, these hope-castles: even though always, when the week -ended and the fleet was back again, they came crashing down. Sometimes -Krelis's boat did not return at all. Sometimes it returned without him. -When he did come back in it very little of his idle Sunday was passed -at home. The dark months of winter dragged on wearily. Grey chill -clouds hung over Marken, and grey chill clouds rested on this poor -Marretje's heart. - - -VIII - -But one glad day in the early spring-time the sun shone again--when -Krelis bent down over her bed with a look of real love in his bright -eyes and kissed her; and then--in a half-fearful way that made her -laugh at him with a weak little laugh in which there was great -happiness--kissed also his little son. "As if his father's kiss could -hurt this great strong boy!" she said in a tone of vast superiority: -and held the little atom close to her breast with all the strength -of her feeble arms. She loved with a double love this little Krelis: -greatly for himself and for the strong thrilling joy of motherhood, but -perhaps even more because his coming had brought the other Krelis back -again into the deep chambers of her heart. - -It was the prettiest of sights, presently, when she was up and about -again, to see Marretje standing in front of her own door in the spring -sunshine holding this famous little Krelis in her arms. Then, as now, -young mothers were common enough in Marken; but there was a look of -radiant happiness about Marretje--so the old people will tell you--that -made her different from any young mother whom ever they saw. "Her face -was as shining as the face of an angel!" one of the old women said to -me--when I heard this story told in Marken on a summer day. And this -same old woman told me that through that time of Marretje's great -happiness Geert Thysen walked sullen: ready at any moment, without -cause or reason, to fly out into what the old woman called a yellow -rage. - -But even from the first the matrons of the island, knowing in such -matters, pulled long faces when they talked about the little Krelis -among themselves. Krelis Kess's son, they said, should not have been -so frail a child; and then they would account for this puny baby by -casting back to the time when Marretje was orphaned before she was -weaned, and so was started in life without the toughness and sturdiness -with which the Marken folk as a rule are dowered. These worthy women -had much good advice to give, and gave it freely, as to how the little -Krelis should be dealt with to strengthen him; but Marretje paid scant -attention to their suggestions, being satisfied in her own mind that -this wonderful baby of hers really was--as she had said he was on the -day when his father first kissed him--a great strong boy. - -Krelis, seeing his little son only once a week, was the first to notice -that he was not so strong as a healthy child should be; but when he -said so to Marretje she gave him such a rating that he decided he must -be all wrong. And then, one day, Geert Thysen opened both his and -Marretje's eyes. - -It was a bright Sunday afternoon, when the little Krelis was between -two and three months old, that Marretje was sitting with him on her -lap, suckling him, on the steps above her scouring-shelf; and Krelis -was seated on the step above her, and she really was making a back of -his big knees. What with the joy of her motherhood, and her joy because -her Krelis was her own again, it seemed to Marretje as though in all -the world there was only happiness. She held the little Krelis close -to her, crooning a soft song sweetly over the tiny creature nestled to -her heart; and as she suckled him there tingled through her breast, and -thence through all her being, thrills of that strange subtle ecstasy -which only mothers know. And Krelis, in his own way, shared Marretje's -great happiness: as they sat there lonely, looking out over the -marsh-land seaward, their hearts very near together because of the deep -love that was in both of them for their child. Presently Krelis leaned -a little forward, and with a touch rarely loving and tender encircled -the two in his big arms and drew Marretje still closer against his -knees. And they sat there for a while so--in the bright silence of that -sunny afternoon, fronting that still outlook over level spaces cut -only by the level sky-line far away--their two hearts throbbing gently -and very full. - -A little noise broke the deep silence suddenly, and an instant later -Geert Thysen was almost within arm's-length of them--standing in a boat -which she had poled very quietly along the canal. Krelis unclasped his -arms and drew back quickly; but Marretje bent forward and grasped the -little Krelis still more closely, as though to shield him from harm. -For a moment there was silence. Krelis flushed and looked uneasy, -almost ashamed. There was a dull burning light in Geert's black eyes -and her face was pale and drawn. She was the first to speak. - -"You're quite right to make the most of your sick baby," she said. "You -won't have him long." - -"He's not a sick baby," Marretje answered furiously. "He's as strong -and well as he can be!" - -Geert laughed. "That puny little thing strong and well!" she answered. -"Much it is that you know about babies, Marretje! Don't you see how the -veins show through his skin? Don't you see the marks under his eyes? -Don't you see how little he is, and how he don't grow? In another -month you'll know more. He'll be over yonder in the graveyard by that -time!" And then she flashed a look on Krelis of that sort of hate which -comes when love goes wrong as she added: "And it is no more than you -deserve, Krelis Kess. You might have had a strong woman for a wife, and -then you would have had a strong child!" With that she gave a sudden -thrust with the pole that sent her boat flying away from them, and in -an instant vanished around a turn in the canal. - - -IX - -Within a week the story of what had happened between them was all -over Marken. Geert Thysen herself must have told what she had done. -Certainly Krelis did not tell; and Marretje, having no one else to -turn to, told only her grandfather. But various versions of the story -went about the island, and the comment upon all of them by the Marken -folk was the same: that Krelis had played the part of a coward in -suffering such words to be spoken to his wife with never a word on his -side of reply. Old Jaap, they say, blazed out into one of his mad -rages against his son-in-law. Some say that he then laid the curse upon -him--but that never will be known certainly, for the bout between the -two men took place when they were alone. - -What is known to be true is that Krelis for a while was as a man -stunned; and that when he came to himself again--this was after -the little Krelis was laid away in the graveyard--what love he had -for Marretje was turned to an angry hatred because she had let his -boy die. He said this not only to his neighbours but to Marretje -herself--telling her that their child had died because she had borne it -weakly into the world and had given it no strength with which to live. - -Even a strong woman, being well-nigh heart-broken--as Marretje was -when her baby was lost to her--could not have stood up against a -blow like that. And Marretje, who was not a strong woman, felt the -heart-breaking bitterness of what Krelis said because she knew that it -was true. Very soon she was as feeble and as wan as the little Krelis -had been. Happiness was no more for her, and she longed only for the -forgetfulness of sorrow which would come to her when she should be -as the little Krelis was. And so her slight hold on life loosened -quickly, and presently she and the little Krelis lay in the graveyard -side by side. - -She had a very nice funeral, so one of the old women in Marken told me: -the best bier and the best pall were used, and the minister gave his -best address--the one called "The Mourning Wreath"--at the grave. And, -to end with, there was a breakfast in Jan de Jong's tavern that was of -the best too. It was only just to Krelis, the old woman said, to say -that in the matter of the funeral he behaved very well indeed. - -But one thing which he did at that breakfast showed that it was for his -own pride, and not for the sake of Marretje, that everything was done -in so fine a style. On Marken there was left no near woman relative of -Marretje's, and when the guests came to the table they were a good deal -scandalized by finding that Geert Thysen was to be seated on Krelis's -right hand. Old Jaap's place was on his left, but when the old man saw -who was to take the seat on the right he drew back quickly from the -table and left the room. - -At that, for a full half-minute there was an awkward pause--until -Krelis, in a strong voice, bade the company be seated: and added that -no one had a better right to the seat beside him than Marretje's oldest -friend. As he made this speech a little buzzing whisper went around -among the company, and some one even snickered down at the lower end -of the big room. But there was the breakfast, as good as it could be, -before them. It was much too good a breakfast to lose on a mere point -of etiquette. The whispering died out, and for a moment the guests -looked at one another in silence--and then there was a great scraping -and rattling of chairs as they all sat down. And Krelis and Geert -presided over the funeral feast with a most proper gravity--save that -now and then a glance passed between them that seemed to have more -meaning than was quite decorous in the case of those two: the one being -a maiden, and the other a widower whose wife had not been buried quite -two hours. - -Of course there was a good deal of talk about all this afterward; but -as public opinion had been moulded under favour able conditions--while -the mellowing influence of the good food and abundant drink was still -operative--the talk was not by any means relentlessly harsh. The men -openly smiled at the proof which Krelis had given that his loss was -not irreparable; and the women, with a certain primness, admitted -that--after all the talk there had been--Krelis owed it to Geert to -marry her with as little delay as the proprieties of the case would -allow. - -But even this kindly public opinion was strained sharply by the -discovery that the marriage was to take place only two months after -that funeral feast at which, to all intents and purposes, it had been -announced. That was going, the women said, altogether too fast. But -the men only laughed again--partly at the way in which the women were -standing up for the respect due to their sex, and partly at Krelis's -hurry to take on again the bonds from which he had been so very -recently set free. - -Here and there among the talkers a questioning word would be put in as -to how old Jaap would take this move on the part of his son-in-law. But -even the few people who bothered their heads with this phase of the -matter held that old Jaap never would have a clear enough understanding -of it to resent the dishonour put upon his granddaughter's memory. He -had returned to his home in the Kerkehof and was living there, in his -own queer way, solitary. He was madder than ever, people said; and -it was certain that he had gone back to his old habit of spending in -the graveyard all of the days and many of the nights which he passed -ashore. Often those who passed by night between the Hafenbeurt and the -Kerkehof saw him there--keeping his strange watch among the graves. - - -X - -What the Marken folk still speak of as "the great storm"--the worst -storm of which there is record in the island's history--set in a good -four-and-twenty hours before the December day on which Geert Thysen -and Krelis Kess were married. From the Polar ice-fields a rushing -and a mighty wind thundered southward over the Arctic Ocean and down -across the shallows of the North Sea--sucking away the water from the -Baltic, sending a roaring tide out through the English Channel into the -Atlantic, and piling higher and higher against the Holland coast a wall -of ocean: which broke at the one opening and went pouring onward into -the Zuyder Zee. - -Already on the morning of that wild wedding-day the waves were lapping -high about Marken, and here and there a dull gleam of water showed -where the marshes were overflowed. Just before daybreak the storm -lulled a little, but came on again with a fresh force after the unseen -sunrise, and grew stronger and stronger as the black day wore on. Down -by the little haven the fishermen were gathered in groups anxiously -watching their tossing boats--in dread lest in spite of the doubled and -tripled moorings they should fetch away. Steadily from the black sky -poured downward sheets of rain. - -According to Marken notions, even a landsman should not have ventured -to marry on a day like that; and for a fisherman to marry while such -a storm was raging was a sheer tempting of all the forces which work -together for evil in the tempests of the sea. Every one expected that -the wedding would be put off; and when word was passed around that -it was not to be put off, all of the older and steadier folk refused -with one voice to have anything to do with it. How Krelis succeeded in -inducing the minister to perform the ceremony no one ever knew--for -the minister was one of the many that day on Marken who never saw the -rising of another sun. He was not well liked, that minister, and -stories not to his credit were whispered about him; at least so one of -the old women told me--and more than half hinted that what happened to -him was a judgment upon him for his sins. - -Even when the wedding-party came across from the Kerkehof to the -Hafenbeurt, some little time before mid-day, the marshes on each side -of the raised path were marshes no longer, but open water--that was -whipped southward before the gale in little angry waves. There was no -chance for a show of finery. The men wore their oil-skins over their -Sunday clothes, and the women were wrapped in cloaks and shawls. But it -was a company of young dare-devils, that wedding-party, and the members -of it came on through the storm laughing and shouting--with Geert and -Krelis leading and the gayest madcaps of them all. So far from being -dismayed by the roaring tempest, those two wild natures seemed only -to be stirred and aroused by it to a fierce happiness. They say that -Geert never was so beautiful as she was that day--her face glowing with -a strong rich colour, her eyes sparkling with a wonderful brilliancy, -her full red lips parted and showing the gleam of those strong white -teeth of hers, her lithe body erect and poised confidently against the -furious wind which swept them all forward along the path. - -But as the party came near to the graveyard, lying midway between the -Kerkehof and the Hafenbeurt close beside the path, some of the young -men and women found their merriment oozing out of them. In that day -of black storm the rain-sodden mound was inexpressibly desolate. All -around it, save for the pathway leading up to its gate, the marsh was -flooded. The graveyard almost was an island--would be quite an island -should the water rise another foot. Rushed onward by the gale, shrewd -little waves were beating against its windward side so sharply that the -soft soil visibly was crumbling away--a sight which recalled a dim but -very grisly legend of how once a great storm had hurled such a sea upon -Marken that the dead bodies lying in that very spot had been torn from -their resting-places by the tumultuous waves. But crueler still was -the shivering thought of Marretje, only two months dead, lying in that -sodden ground in her storm-beaten grave. - -And then, as they came closer, the memory of Marretje was brought home -to them still more sharply and in a strangely startling way: as they -saw old Jaap uprise suddenly from where he had been crouched amidst -the graves. Bareheaded, with his long grey hair and long grey beard -soaked with the falling torrent and flying out before the wind, he -stood upright on the crest of the mound close above them--his tall lean -figure towering commandingly against the black rain clouds, defiant as -some old sea-god of the furious storm. - -He seemed to be speaking, but the storm noises were as a wall shutting -him off from them, and not until they had passed on a little and were -to leeward of him could they hear his words. Then they heard him -clearly: speaking slowly, with no trace of anger in his tones but -with a strange solemn fervour--as though he felt himself to be out -beyond the line which separates Time from Eternity, and from that -vantage-point uttered with authority the judgments of an outraged God. -It was to Geert and Krelis that he spoke, pointing at them with one -outstretched hand while the other was raised as though in invocation -toward the wild black sky: "For your sins the anger of God is loosed -upon you in His tempests, and in His name I curse you with a binding -curse. May the raging waters be upon you! May you perish in the wrath -of the Zuyder Zee!" - -A shudder went through all the wedding company. Even Krelis, half -stopping, suddenly paled. Only Geert, bolder than all of them put -together, held her own. With a quick motion she drew Krelis onward, and -her lip curled in that way of hers as she said to him: "What has old -Jaap to do with you or me, Krelis? He is a mad old fool!" And then she -looked straight at old Jaap, into the very eyes of him, and laughed -scornfully--as they all together went on again through the wind and -rain. - -But when they came to Jan de Jong's tavern, where the wedding-breakfast -was waiting for them, Krelis was the first to call for gin. He said -that he was cold. - - -XI - -It was the strangest wedding-feast, they say, that ever was held on -Marken: with the black tempest beating outside, and all the lamps in -the big room lighted--although the day still was on the morning side -of noon. Young Jan de Jong--the same who is old Jan de Jong now, and -who now keeps the tavern--remembers it all well, and tells how his -mother was for bundling the whole company out of doors. Such doings -would bring bad luck upon the house, she said--and went up-stairs and -locked herself into her room and took to praying when her husband told -her that bad luck never came with good money, and that what Krelis was -willing to pay for Krelis should have. - -But it was the wife who was right that time--as the husband knew a -very little later on. For that night Krelis's boat was one of those -swept away from their moorings and foundered, and Krelis's fine house -was undermined by the water and went out over the Zuyder Zee in -fragments--and so the wedding-feast never was paid for at all. And she -always said that but for her prayers their son would have been lost to -them too. Old Jan was very grave when he told me about this--and from -some of the others I learned that it was because of what happened to -him that night that he gave over the wild life that he had been leading -and became a steady man. - -At first, what with the blackness of the storm and the ringing in -everybody's ears of old Jaap's curse, the company was a dismal one. -But the plentiful hot gin-and-water that Krelis ordered--and led in -drinking--soon brought cheerfulness back again. As for Geert, she -had no need of gin-and-water: her high spirits held from first to -last. Seated on Krelis's right--just as she had been seated only a -little while before on the day of Marretje's funeral--she rattled away -steadily with her gay talk; and every now and then, they say, turned to -Krelis with a look that brought fire into his eyes! - -The walk after breakfast was out of the question. As the afternoon went -on the storm raged more and more tumultuously. There was nothing for it -but to have the room cleared of the chairs and table and go straight on -to the dancing; and that they did--excepting some of the weaker-headed -ones, whose legs were too badly tangled for such gay exercise and who -sat limply on the benches against the wall. - -This time it was not by favour but by right that Geert led the dance -with Krelis--her black eyes shining and her face all of a rich red -glow. And as she took her place at the head of it she said to Jaantje -de Waard: "Who's got him now, this lover of mine you said I'd lost, -Jaantje? Didn't I tell you that it's one thing to lay the net, but -it's another to haul it in?" And away she went, caught close to -Krelis, with a laugh on those red lips of hers and a brighter sparkle -in her black eyes. Jaantje said--it was she who told me, an old woman -now--that somehow this speech of Geert's, and the sudden thought that -it brought of dead Marretje out there in the graveyard, made her -feel so queasy in her stomach that she left the dance and went home -bare-headed through the storm. - -The dancing, with plenty of drink between whiles, went on until -evening; and after night-fall the company grew still merrier--partly -because of the punch, but more because the feast lost much of its -grewsomeness when they all knew that the darkness outside was the -ordinary darkness of black night and not the strange darkness of that -black day. But there was no break in the storm; and now and then, -when a fierce burst of wind fairly set the house to rocking on its -foundations, and sent the rain dashing in sheets against the windows, -there would be anxious talk among those of the dancers who came from -the Kerkehof or the Kesbeurt as to how they were to get home. From time -to time one of the men would open the door a little and take a look -outside--and would draw in again in a hurry and go straight to the -punch-bowl for comforting: for none of them had seen any storm like -that on Marken in all their lives. - -And so, when at last the storm did lull a little--this was about eight -o'clock in the evening, close upon the moonrise--there was a general -disposition to take advantage of the break and get away. And Krelis did -not urge his guests to stay longer, for he was of the same mind with -them--being eager to carry off homeward his Geert with the flashing -eyes. - -But when the men went out of doors together to have a look about them -they were brought up suddenly with a round turn. It is only a step from -Jan de Jong's tavern to the head of the path that dips downward and -leads across the marshes to the other villages. But when they had taken -that step no path was to be seen! Close at their feet, and stretching -away in front of them as far as their eyes could reach through the -night-gloom, was to be seen only tumultuous black water flecked here -and there with patches of foam. Everywhere over Marken, save the -graveyard mound and the knolls on which stood the several villages, -the ocean was in possession: right across the island were sweeping the -storm-lashed waves of the Zuyder Zee! - - -XII - -Though they all were filled with punch-begotten Dutch courage, not -one of them but Krelis--as they stood together looking out over what -should have been marsh-land and what was angry sea--thought even for -a moment of getting homeward before daylight should come again and -the gale should break away. And even Krelis would not have been for -facing such danger at an ordinary time: but just then his soul and body -were in commotion, and over the black stormy water he saw visions of -Geert beckoning him to those red lips of hers, and firing him with the -sparkle of her flashing eyes. - -"It's a bit of sea," he said lightly, "but if one of you will lend a -hand at an oar with me we'll manage it easily. Just here it's baddish. -But a stiff pull of a hundred yards will fetch us into smoother water -under the lee of the graveyard, and beyond that we'll be a little under -the lee of the Kerkehof--and then another spurt of stiff pulling will -fetch us home. Geert will steer, and we can count on her to steer well. -I wouldn't have risked it with Marretje at the tiller--but I've got -another sort of a wife now. Which of you'll come along?" - -There was a dead silence at that, for every one of the young fellows -standing there knew that to take a boat out into that water meant a -fight for life at every inch of the way. - -"Well, since you're all so modest," Krelis went on with a laugh, "I'll -pick out big Jan here to pull with me--and no offence to the rest of -you, for we all know that not another man on Marken pulls so strong an -oar." - -It was old Jan himself who told me this, and he said that when Krelis -chose him that way there was nothing for him to do but to say that he'd -go. But he said that he went pale at the thought of what was before -him, and would have given anything in the world to get out of the job. -All the others spoke up against their trying it; and that, he said, -while it scared him still more--for they all, in spite of the punch -that was in them, spoke very seriously--helped him to go ahead. It -would be something to talk about afterward, he thought, that he had -done what everybody else was afraid to do. And when the others found -that he and Krelis were not to be shaken, they set themselves to -bringing a strong boat across from the other side of the village and -getting it into the water--in a smooth place under the lee of one of -the houses--and lashing a lantern fast into its bows. - -When Krelis and Jan went back to the tavern to fetch Geert there was -another outcry. All the women got around Geert and declared that she -should not go. But Geert was ready always for any bit of daredeviltry, -and the readier when anybody tried to hold her back from it--and then -the way that Krelis looked at her would have taken her with him through -the very gates of hell. She only laughed at the other women, and made -them help her to put on the oil-skin hat and coat that Krelis fetched -for her to keep her dry against the pelting rain. And she laughed still -louder when she was rigged out in that queer dress--and what with her -sparkling eyes and her splendid colour was so bewitching under the big -hat that Krelis snatched a kiss from her and swore that at last he had -a wife just to his mind. - -All the company, muffled in shawls and cloaks, went along with them to -the water-side to see them start; and because there was no commotion -in the quiet nook where the boat was lying, and the darkness hid the -tumbling waves beyond, most of them thought that the only danger ahead -for Geert and the others was a thorough drenching--and were disposed to -make fun of this queer wedding-journey on which they were bound. But -the young men who had launched the boat knew better, and they tried -once more to make Krelis give over his purpose--or, at least, to wait -until the moon should rise a little and thin the clouds. And all the -answer that they got was a laugh from Geert and a joking invitation -from Krelis to come across to the Kesbeurt in the morning and join him -in a glass of grog. - -Krelis was to pull stroke, and so big Jan got into the boat ahead of -him--with his heart fairly down in his boots, he told me--and then -Krelis got in; and last of all Geert took her seat in the stern, and -as she gripped the tiller steadily gave the order to shove off. With -a strong push the young men gave the boat a start that sent it well -out from the shore, and then the oars bit into the water and they were -under way. - -One of the old women whom I talked with was of the wedding-party, and -down there by the shore that night, and she told me that they all -cheered and laughed for a minute as the boat with the lantern in her -bows shot off from the land. The thought of danger, she said, was quite -out of their minds. Right in front of them, less than a quarter of a -mile away, they saw the lights of the houses in the Kesbeurt shining -brightly, and plainly setting the course for Geert to steer; and they -knew that the two strongest men on Marken were at the oars. What they -all were laughing about, she said, was that anybody should be going -from the one village to the other in a boat--and that it should be a -wedding-journey, too! - -But it was only for a moment that their laughter lasted. The instant -that the boat was out of the sheltered smooth water they all knew that -not by one chance in a thousand could she live to fetch across. By the -light of the lantern fixed in her bows they saw plainly the wild tumult -of the sea around her--that caught her and seemed to stand her almost -straight on end as Geert held her strongly against the oncoming waves. -The old woman said that a thrill of horror ran through them all as they -realized what certainly must happen. By a common impulse down they -all went on their knees on the sodden ground, with the rain pelting -them--and she heard some one cry out in the darkness: "Old Jaap's curse -is upon them! May God pity and help them and have mercy on their souls!" - -[Illustration: OLD JAAP] - - -XIII - -Old Jan, who alone knew it, told me the rest of the story--but speaking -slowly and unwillingly, as though it all still were fresh before him -and very horribly real. - -He said that when the boat lifted as that first sea struck her it was -plain enough what was likely to happen to them--for they could not put -about to make the shore again without swamping, and with such a sea -running they were pretty certain to swamp quickly if they went on. But -Krelis was not the sort to give in, and he shouted over his shoulder: -"I've got you into a scrape, Jan; but if we can pull up under the lee -of the graveyard there's a chance for us still." And then he called to -Geert: "Now you can show what stuff you're made of, Geert. Steer for -the graveyard--and for God's sake hold her straight to the sea!" As for -Geert, she was as cool as the best man could have been, and she steered -as well as any man could have steered. The light from the lantern shone -full in her face, and old Jan said that her eyes kept on sparkling and -that her colour never changed. - -With that tremendous wind sweeping down on them, and with the waves -butting against the boat, and throwing her head up every instant, even -Jan and Krelis--and they were the best oarsmen on Marken--could make -only snail's way. But it heartened them to find that they made any way -at all--as they could tell that they were doing by seeing the lights -ashore crawling past them--and so they lashed away with their oars and -found a little hope growing again. Presently Krelis called out: "The -water's getting smoother, Jan. Another fifty yards and we'll be all -right!" - -That was true. They were creeping up steadily under the lee of the -graveyard, and the closer they got to it the more would it break the -force of the waves. If they could reach it they would be safe. - -Just as Krelis spoke, the boat struck against something so sharply that -she quivered all over and lost way. Neither of the men dared to turn -even for an instant; nor could their turning have done any good--all -that they could do was to row on. But Geert could look ahead, and the -lantern in the bows cast a little circle of light upon the furious -sea. As she peered over their shoulders a strange look came into her -face, Jan said, and then she spoke in a voice strained and strange: -"It's a coffin," she said, "and I see another one a little farther on. -The sea is washing away the graveyard--as it did that time long ago!" -And then the coffin went past them, so close that it struck against and -nearly unshipped Krelis's oar. - -Jan said that he trembled all over, and that a cold sweat broke out on -him. He felt himself going sick and giddy, and fell to wondering what -would happen should he be unable to keep on pulling--and how long it -took a man to drown. Then--but because of a ringing in his ears the -voice seemed to come faintly from very far away--he heard Krelis cry -out cheerily: "Pull, Jan! If we're getting among the coffins we'll be -safe in a dozen strokes more!" - -It was at that instant that a great wave lifted the bow of the boat -high out of the water, and as she fell away into the trough of the sea -she struck again--but that time with a crash that had in it the sound -of breaking boards. Jan knew that they must have struck the other -coffin that Geert had seen, and he was sure that the boat was stove in -and in another moment would fill and sink from under them. - -For what seemed a whole age to him there was a grinding and a crunching -beneath the keel; and then, as the boat swung free again, he saw Geert -go chalk-pale suddenly--as she stood peering eagerly forward--and -heard her give a great wild cry. And then her color rushed back into -her cheeks and her eyes glittered as she called out in a strong voice -resolutely: "It's Marretje come to take you from me, Krelis--but she -sha'n't, she sha'n't! You never really were her lover--and you always -were and always shall be mine! And I hate her and I'll get the better -of her dead just as I hated her and got the better of her alive!" And -with that Geert let go her hold upon the tiller and sprang forward and -clasped Krelis in her arms. - -Jan could not tell clearly what happened after that. All that he was -sure of was the sight for an instant, tossing beside the boat in the -circle of light cast by the lantern, of a lidless coffin in which lay -wrapped in her white shroud the dead golden-haired Marretje--and then -the boat broached to and went over, and there was nothing about him -but blackness and the tumultuous waves. As he went down into a hollow -of the sea he felt the ground beneath his feet, and that put courage -into him to make a fight for life. Struggling against the gale, and -against waves which grew smaller as he battled on through them, he went -forward with a heart-breaking slowness; and the strength was clean gone -out of him when he won his way at last up the lee side of the little -mound--and dropped down at full length there, in safe shelter amidst -the graves. - -"And Geert and Krelis?" I asked. - -"With her arms tight about him there was no chance for either of them," -he answered. And then he went on, speaking very solemnly: "The word -that was truth had been spoken against them. They perished in the wrath -of the Zuyder Zee!" - - - - -A Duluth Tragedy - - -I - -[Illustration] - -Jutting out from the rocky coast, a sand spit nearly seven miles -long, Minnesota Point is as a strong arm stretched forth to defend -the harbour of Duluth against the storms which breed in the frozen -North and come roaring down Lake Superior. Wisconsin Point, less than -half its length, almost meets it from the other shore. Between the -two is the narrow inlet through which in old times came the Canadian -voyageurs--on their way across Saint Louis Bay and up the windings of -the Saint Louis River to Pond du Lac, twenty miles farther westward. -That was in the fur-trading days of little sailing-vessels and -birch-bark canoes. Now, close to its shoulder, the Point is cut by a -canal through which the great black steamships come and go. - -Five-and-twenty years ago--before the canal was thought of, and when -the Duluth of the present, with its backing of twenty thousand miles -of railway, was a dream just beginning to be realized--Minnesota Point -was believed to have a great future. Close to its shoulder a town site -was staked out, and little wooden houses were built at a great rate. -Corner lots on that sand spit were at a premium. The "boom" was on. The -smash of '73 knocked the bottom out of everything for a while. When -good times came again the town site moved on westward a half-mile or -so and settled itself on the mainland. The little houses on the Point -were out of the running and were taken up by Swedes--who were content, -as Americans were not, to live a few steps away from the strenuous -centre of that inchoate metropolis. That time the "boom" was a genuine -one. The new city had come to stay. In course of time, to meet its -growing trade requirements, the canal was cut which made the Point an -island--and after that the Point was dead for good and all. - -Nowadays it is only in summer that a little life, other than that -of its few inhabitants, shows itself on Minnesota Point--when -camping-parties and picnic-parties go down by three miles of shaky -tramway to Oatka Beach. During all the rest of the year that sandy -barren, with its forlorn decaying houses and its dreary growth of pines -stunted by the harsh lake winds, is forgotten and desolate. Now and -then is heard the cry of a gull flying across it slowly; and always -against its outer side--with a thunderous crash in times of storm, in -times of calm with a sad soft lap-lapping--surge or ripple the deathly -cold waters of Lake Superior: waters so cold that whoever drowns in -them sinks quickly--not to rise again (as the drowned do usually), but -for all time, in chill companionship with the countless dead gathered -there through the ages, to be lost and hidden in those icy depths. - -The ghastly coldness of the water in which it is merged seems to -have numbed the Point and reconciled it to its bleak destiny. It has -accepted its fate: recognizing with a grim indifference that its -once glowing future has vanished irrevocably into what now is the -hopelessness of its nearly forgotten past. - - -II - -[Illustration] - -George Maltham, wandering out on the Point one Sunday morning in the -early spring-time--he had just come up from Chicago to take charge of -the Duluth end of his father's line of lake steamers and was lonely -in that strange place, and was the more disposed to be misanthropic -because he had a headache left over from the previous wet night at -the club--came promptly to the conclusion that he never had struck a -place so god-forsakenly dismal. Aside from his own feelings, there was -even more than usual to justify this opinion. The day was grey and -chill. A strong northeast wind was blowing that covered the lake with -white-caps and that sent a heavy surf rolling shoreward. A little ice, -left from the spring break-up, still was floating in the harbour. Under -these conditions the Point was at its cheerless worst. - -Maltham had crossed the canal by the row-boat ferry. Having mounted -the sodden steps and looked about him for a moment--in which time his -conclusion was reached as to the Point's god-forsaken dismalness--he -was for abandoning his intended explorations and going straight-away -back to the mainland. But when he turned to descend the steps the boat -had received some waiting passengers--three church-bound Swedish women -in their Sunday clothes--and had just pushed off. That little turn of -chance decided him. After all, he said to himself, it did not make -much difference. What he wanted was a walk to rid him of his headache; -and the Point offered him, as the rocky hill-sides of the mainland -conspicuously did not, a good long stretch of level land. - -Before him extended an absurdly wide street--laid out in magnificent -expectation of the traffic that never came to it--flanked in -far-reaching perspective by the little houses which sprang up in such -a hurry when the "boom" was on. In its centre was the tramway, its -road-bed laid with wooden planks. The dingy open tram-car, in which -the church-bound Swedish women had come up to the ferry, started away -creakingly while he stood watching it. That was the only sight or sound -of life. For some little time, in the stillness, he could hear the -driver addressing Swedish remarks of an encouraging or abusive nature -to his mule. - -Taking the planked tramway in preference to the rotten wooden sidewalks -full of pitfalls, Maltham walked on briskly for a mile or so--his -headache leaving him in the keen air--until the last of the little -houses was passed. There the vast street suddenly dribbled off into -a straggling sandy road, which wound through thickets of bushy white -birch and a sparse growth of stunted pines. The tramway, along which -he continued, went on through the brush in a straight line. The -Point had narrowed to a couple of hundred yards. Through rifts in -the tangle about him he could see heaps of storm-piled drift-wood -scattered along the lake-side beach--on which the surf was pounding -heavily. On the harbour side the beach was broken by inthrusts of -sedgy swamp. Presently he came to a sandy open space in which, beside -a weather-worn little wooden church, was a neglected graveyard that -seemed to give the last touch of dreariness to that dismal solitude. - -The graveyard was a waste of sand, save where bushy patches of birch -had sprung up in it from wind-borne seeds. Swept by many storms, the -sandy mounds were disappearing. Still marking the graves were a few -shabby wooden crosses and a dozen or so of slanting or fallen wooden -slabs. Once these short-lived monuments had been painted white and had -borne legends in black lettering. But only a Swedish word or a Swedish -name remained here and there legible--for the sun and the wind and the -rain had been doing their erasing work steadily for years. One slab -alone stood nearly upright and retained a few partly decipherable lines -in English. But even on that Maltham could make out only the scattered -words: "Sacred.... Ulrica.... Royal House of Sweden ... ever beloved -... of Major Calhoun Ashley," and a date that seemed to be 1879. - -His headache had gone, but it had left him heavy and dejected. That -fragmentary epitaph increased his sombreness. Even had he been in a -cheerful mood he could not have failed to perceive the pathetic irony -of it all. There was more than the ordinary cruelty of death and -forgetfulness, he thought, about that grave so desolate of one who -had been connected--it did not matter how--with a "royal house," and -who was described in those almost illegible lines as "ever beloved." -That was human nature down to the hard pan, he thought; and with a -half-smile and a half-sigh over the fate of that poor dead Ulrica he -turned away from the graveyard and walked on. Half-whimsically he -wondered if he had reached the climax of the melancholy which brooded -over that dreary sand spit. As he stated the case to himself, short of -finding a man lying murdered among the birch-bushes it was not likely -that he would strike anything able to raise that graveyard's hand! - -The murdered man did not materialize, and the next out-of-the-way -sight that he came across--when he had walked on past the dingy and -forgotten-looking little church--was a big ramshackling wooden house -of such pretentious absurdity that his first glimpse of it fairly made -him laugh. Its square centre was a wooden tower of three stories, -battlemented, flanked by two battlemented wings. A veranda ran along -the lower floor, and above the veranda was a gallery. Some of the -windows were boarded over; others had scraps of carpet stuck into their -glassless gaps--and all had Venetian shutters (singularly at odds with -the climate of that region) hanging dubiously and with many broken -slats. The paint had weathered away, and bricks had fallen from the -chimney-tops--a loss which gave to the queer structure, in conjunction -with lapses in its wooden battlements, a sadly broken-crested air. -As a whole, it suggested a badly done caricature of an old-fashioned -Southern homestead--of which the essence of the caricature was finding -it in that bleak Northern land. - - -III - -[Illustration] - -Maltham had come to a full stop in front of this absurd dwelling, which -was set a little back from the road in a dishevelled enclosure, and -as he stood examining in an amused way its various eccentricities he -became aware that from one of the lower windows a man was watching him. - -This was disconcerting, and he turned to walk on. But before he had -gone a dozen steps the front door opened and the man came outside. -He was dressed in shabby grey clothes with a certain suggestion of a -military cut about them; but in spite of his shabbiness he had the look -of a gentleman. He was sixty, or thereabouts, and seemed to have been -well set up when he was younger--before the slouch had settled on his -shoulders and before he had taken on a good many unnecessary inches -about his waist. From where he stood on the veranda he hailed Maltham -cordially: - -"Won't yo' come in, suh? I have obsehved youah smiles at my old house -heah-- No, no, yo' owe me no apology, suh," he went on quickly, as -Maltham attempted a confused disclaimer. "Yo' ah quite justified in -laughing, suh, at my foolish fancy--that went wrong mainly because the -Yankee ca'pentah whom I employed to realize it was a hopelessly damned -fool. But it was a creditable sentiment, suh, which led me to desiah -to reproduce heah in godfo'saken Minnesotah my ancestral home in the -grand old State of South Cahrolina--the house that my grandfatheh built -theah and named Eutaw Castle, as I have named its pore successeh, -because of the honorable paht he bo' in the battle of Eutaw Springs. -The result, I admit, is a thing to laugh at, suh--but not the ideah. -No, suh, not the ideah! But come in, suh, come in! The exterioh of -Eutaw Castle may be a failuah; but within it, suh, yo' will find in -this cold No'th'en region the genuine wahm hospitality of a true -Southe'n home!" - -Maltham perceived that the only apology which he could offer for -laughing at this absurd house--the absurdity of which became rather -pathetic, he thought, in view of its genesis--was to accept its owner's -invitation to enter it. Acting on this conclusion, he turned into the -enclosure--the gate, hanging loosely on a single hinge, was standing -open--and mounted the veranda steps. - -As he reached the top step his host advanced and shook hands with -him warmly. "Yo'ah vehy welcome, suh," he said; and added, after -putting his hand to a pocket in search of something that evidently -was not there: "Ah, I find that I have not my cahd-case about me. -Yo' must pehmit me to introduce myself: Majoh Calhoun Ashley, of the -Confedehrate sehvice, suh--and vehy much at youahs." - -Maltham started a little as he heard this name, and the small shock so -far threw him off his balance that as he handed his card to the Major -he said: "Then it was your name that I saw just now in--" And stopped -short, inwardly cursing himself for his awkwardness. - -"That yo' saw in the little graveyahd, on the tomb of my eveh-beloved -wife, suh," the Major replied--with a quaver in his voice which -compelled Maltham mentally to reverse his recent generalizations. The -Major was silent for a moment, and then continued: "Heh grave is not -yet mahked fitly, suh, as no doubt yo' obsehved. Cihcumstances oveh -which I have had no control have prevented me from erecting as yet a -suitable monument oveh heh sacred remains. She was my queen, suh"--his -voice broke again--"and of a line of queens: a descendant, suh, from a -collateral branch of the ancient royal house of Sweden. I am hoping, -I am hoping, suh, that I shall be able soon to erect oveh heh last -resting-place a monument wo'thy of heh noble lineage and of hehself. I -am hoping, suh, to do that vehy soon." - -The Major again was silent for a moment; and then, pulling himself -together, he looked at Maltham's card--holding it a long way off -from his eyes. "Youah name is familiar to me, suh," he said, -"though fo' the moment I do not place it, and I am most happy to -make youah acquaintance. But come in, suh, come in. I am fo'getting -myself--keeping you standing this way outside of my own doah." - -He took Maltham cordially by the arm and led him through the doorway -into a wide bare hall; and thence into a big room on the right, that -was very scantily furnished but that was made cheerful by a rousing -drift-wood fire. Over the high mantel-piece was hung an officer's sword -with its belt. On the buckle of the belt were the letters C. S. A. -Excepting this rather pregnant bit of decoration, the whitewashed walls -were bare. - -The Major bustled with hospitality--pulling the bigger and more -comfortable of two arm-chairs to the fire and seating Maltham in it, -and then bringing out glasses and a bottle from a queer structure of -unpainted white pine that stood at one end of the room and had the look -of a sideboard gone wrong. - -"At the moment, suh," he said apologetically, "my cellah is badly -fuhnished and I am unable to offeh yo' wine. But if yo' have an -appreciative taste fo' Bourbon," he went on with more assurance, "I am -satisfied that yo' will find the ahticle in this bottle as sound as any -that the noble State of Kentucky eveh has produced. Will yo' oblige me, -suh, by saying when!" - -Not knowing about the previous wet night, and its still lingering -consequences, the promptness with which Maltham said "when" seemed to -disconcert the Major a little--but not sufficiently to deter him from -filling his own glass with a handsome liberality. Holding it at a level -with his lips, he turned toward his guest with the obvious intention of -drinking a toast. - -"May I have a little water, please?" put in Maltham. - -"I beg youah pahdon, suh. I humbly beg youah pahdon," the Major -answered. "I am not accustomed to dilute my own liquoh, and I most -thoughtlessly assumed that yo' would not desiah to dilute youahs. I -trust that yo' will excuse my seeming rudeness, suh. Yo' shall have at -once the bevehrage which yo' desiah." - -While still apologizing, the Major placed his glass on the table and -went to the door. Opening it he called: "Ulrica, my child, bring a -pitcheh of fresh wateh right away." - -Again Maltham gave a little start--as he had done when the Major had -introduced himself. In a vague sub-conscious way he felt that there -was something uncanny in thus finding living owners of names which he -had seen, within that very hour, scarcely legible above an uncared-for -grave. But the Major, talking on volubly, did not give him much -opportunity for these psychological reflections; and presently there -was the sound of footsteps in the hall outside, and then the door -opened and the owner of the grave-name appeared. - - -IV - -[Illustration] - -Because of the odd channel in which his thoughts were running, Maltham -had the still odder fancy for an instant that the young girl who -entered the room was the dead Ulrica of whom the Major had spoken--"a -queen, and of a line of queens." And even when this thought had -passed--so quickly that it was gone before he had risen to his feet to -greet her--the impression of her queenliness remained. For this living -woman bearing a dead name might have been Aslauga herself: so tall and -stately was she, and so fair with that cold beauty of the North of -which the soul is fire. Instinctively he felt the fire, and knew that -it still slumbered--and knew, too, that in the fulness of time, being -awakened, it would glow with a consuming splendour in her dark eyes. - -All this went in a flash through his mind before the Major said: -"Pehmit me, Mr. Maltham, to present yo' to my daughteh, Miss Ulrica -Ashley." And added: "Mr. Maltham was passing, Ulrica, and did me the -honeh to accept my invitation to come in." - -She put down the pitcher of water and gave Maltham her hand. "It -was very kind of you, sir," she said gravely. "We do not have many -visitors, and my father gets lonely with only me. It was very kind of -you, sir, indeed." She spoke with a certain precision, and with a very -slight accent--so slight that Maltham did not immediately notice it. -What he did notice, with her first words, was the curiously thrilling -quality of her low-pitched and very rich voice. - -"And don't you get lonely too?" he asked. - -"Why no," she answered with a little air of surprise. And speaking -slowly, as though she were working the matter out in her mind, she -added: "With me it is different, you see. I was born here on the Point -and I love it. And then I have the house to look after. And I have my -boat. And I can talk with the neighbours--though I do not often care -to. Father cannot talk with them, because he does not know Swedish as -I do. When he wants company he has to go all the way up to town. You -see, it is not the same with us at all." And then, as though she had -explained the matter sufficiently, she turned to the Major and asked: -"Do you want anything more, father?" - -"Nothing mo', my child--except that an extra place is to be set at -table. Mr. Maltham will dine with us, of co'se." - -At this Maltham protested a little; but presently yielded to Ulrica's, -"You will be doing a real kindness to father if you will stay, Mr. -Maltham," backed by the Major's peremptory: "Yo' ah my prisoneh, suh, -and in Eutaw Castle we don't permit ouah prisonehs to stahve!" The -matter being thus settled, Ulrica made a little formal bow and left the -room. - -"The wateh is at youah sehvice, suh," said the Major as the door -closed behind her. "I beg that yo' will dilute youah liquoh to youah -liking. Heah's to youah very good health, suh--and to ouah betteh -acquaintance." He drank his whiskey appreciatively, and as he set down -his empty glass continued: "May I ask, suh, if yo' ah living in Duluth, -oh mehly passing through? I ventuah to ask because a resident of this -town sca'cely would be likely to come down on the Point at this time of -yeah." - -"I began to be a resident only day before yesterday," Maltham answered. -"I've come to take charge here of our steamers--the Sunrise Line." - -"The Sunrise Line!" repeated the Major in a very eager tone. "The -biggest transpo'tation line on the lakes. The line of which that great -capitalist Mr. John L. Maltham is president. And to think, suh, that I -did not recognize youah name!" - -"John L. Maltham is my father," the young man said. - -"Why, of co'se, of co'se! I might have had the sense to know that as -soon as I looked at youah cahd. This is a most fo'tunate meeting, -Mr. Maltham--most fo'tunate for both of us. I shall not on this -occasion, when yo' ah my guest, enteh into a discussion of business -mattehs. But at an eahly day I shall have the honeh to lay befo' yo' -convincing reasons why youah tehminal docks should be established heah -on the Point--which a beneficent Providence cleahly intended to be -the shipping centeh of this metropolis--and prefehrably, suh, as the -meahest glance at a chaht of the bay will demonstrate, heah on my land. -Yo' will have the first choice of the wha'ves which I have projected; -and I may even say, suh, that any altehrations which will affo'd mo' -convenient accommodations to youah vessels still ah possible. Yes, suh, -the matteh has not gone so fah but that any reasonable changes which -yo' may desiah may yet be made." - -Remembering the sedgy swamps beside which he had passed that morning, -Maltham was satisfied that the Major's concluding statement was well -within the bounds of truth. But he was not prepared to meet off-hand so -radical a proposition, and while he was fumbling in his mind for some -sort of non-committal answer the Major went on again. - -"It is not fo' myself, suh," he said, "that I desiah to realize this -magnificent undehtaking. Living heah costs little, and what I get -from renting my land to camping pahties and fo' picnics gives me all -I need. And I'm an old man, anyway, and whetheh I die rich oh pore -don't matteh. It's fo' my daughteh's sake that I seek wealth, suh, not -fo' my own. That deah child of mine is heh sainted motheh oveh again, -Mr. Maltham--except that heh motheh's eyes weh blue. That is the only -diffehrence. And beside heh looks she has identically the same sweet -natuah, suh--the same exquisite goodness and beauty of haht. When my -great loss came to me," the Major's voice broke badly, "it was my love -fo' that deah child kept me alive. It breaks my haht, suh, to think of -dying and leaving heh heah alone and pore." - -Maltham had got to his bearings by this time and was able to frame a -reasonably diplomatic reply. "Well, perhaps we'd better not go into -the matter to-day," he said. "You see, our line has traffic agreements -with the N. P. and the Northwestern that must hold for the present, -anyway. And then I've only just taken charge, you know, and I must look -around a little before I do anything at all. But I might write to my -father to come up here when he can, and then he and you could have a -talk." - -The Major's look of eager cheerfulness faded at the beginning of -this cooling rejoinder, but he brightened again at its end. "A talk -with youah fatheh, suh," he answered, "would suit me down to the -ground-flo'. An oppo'tunity to discuss this great matteh info'mally -with a great capitalist has been what I've most desiahed fo' yeahs. -But I beg youah pahdon, suh. I am fo'getting the sacred duties of -hospitality. Pehmit me to fill youah glass." - -It seemed to pain him that his guest refused this invitation; but, -finding him obdurate, he kept the sacred duties of hospitality in -working order by exercising them freely upon himself. "Heah's to -the glorious futuah of Minnesotah Point, suh!" he said as he raised -his glass--and it was obvious that he would be off again upon the -exploitation of his hopelessly impossible project as soon as he put it -down. Greatly to Maltham's relief, the door opened at that juncture and -Ulrica entered to call them to dinner; and he was still more relieved, -when they were seated at table, by finding that his host dropped -business matters and left the glorious future of Minnesota Point -hanging in the air. - -At his own table, indeed, the Major was quite at his best. He told good -stories of his army life, and of his adventurous wanderings which ended -when he struck Duluth just at the beginning of its first "boom"; and -very entertaining was what he had to tell of that metropolis in its -embryotic days. - -But good though the Major's stories were, Maltham found still more -interesting the Major's daughter--who spoke but little, and who seemed -to be quite lost at times in her own thoughts. As he sat slightly -turned toward her father he could feel her eyes fixed upon him; and -more than once, facing about suddenly, he met her look full. When this -happened she was not disconcerted, nor did she immediately look away -from him--and he found himself thrilled curiously by her deeply intent -gaze. Yet the very frankness of it gave it a quality that was not -precisely flattering. He had the feeling that she was studying him in -much the same spirit that she would have studied some strange creature -that she might have come across in her walks in the woods. When he -tried to bring her into the talk he did not succeed; but this was -mainly because the Major invariably cut in before he could get beyond -a direct question and a direct reply. Only once--when her father made -some reference to her love for sailing--was her reserve, which was not -shyness, a little broken; and the few words that she spoke before the -Major broke in again were spoken so very eagerly that Maltham resolved -to bring her back to that subject when he could get the chance. Knowing -something of the ways of women, he knew that to set her to talking -about anything in which she was profoundly interested would lower her -guard at all points--and so would enable him to come in touch with her -thoughts. He wanted to get at her thoughts. He was sure that they were -not of a commonplace kind. - - -V - -[Illustration] - - -When the dinner was ended he made a stroke for the chance that he -wanted. "Will you show me your boat?" he asked. "I'm a bit of a sailor -myself, and I should like to see her very much indeed." - -"Oh, would you? I am so glad!" she answered eagerly. And then added -more quietly: "It is a real pleasure to show you the _Nixie_. I am very -fond of her and very proud of her. Father gave her to me three years -ago--after he sold a lot over in West Superior. And it was very good of -him, because he does not like sailing at all. Will you come now? It is -only a step down to the wharf." - -The Major declared that he must have his after-dinner pipe in comfort, -and they went off without him--going out by a side door and across a -half-acre of kitchen-garden, still in winter disorder, to the wharf -on the bay-side where the _Nixie_ was moored. She was a half-decked -twenty-foot cat-boat, clean in her lines and with the look of being -able to hold her own pretty well in a blow. - -"Is she not beautiful?" Ulrica asked with great pride. And presently, -when Maltham came to a pause in his praises, she added hesitatingly: -"Would you--would you care to come out in her for a little while?" - -"Indeed I would!" he answered instantly and earnestly. - -"Oh, thank you, thank you!" Ulrica exclaimed. "I do want you to see how -wonderfully she sails!" - -The boat was moored with her stern close to the wharf and with her bow -made fast to an outstanding stake. When they had boarded her Ulrica -cast off the stern mooring, ran the boat out to the stake and made fast -with a short hitch, and then--as the boat swung around slowly in the -slack air under the land--set about hoisting the sail. She would not -permit Maltham to help her. He sat aft, steadying the tiller, watching -with delight her vigorous dexterity and her display of absolute -strength. When she had sheeted home and made fast she cast off the -bow mooring, and then stepped aft quickly and took the tiller from his -hand. For a few moments they drifted slowly. Then the breeze, coming -over the tree-tops, caught them and she leaned forward and dropped the -centreboard and brought the boat on the wind. It was a leading wind, -directly off the lake, that enabled them to make a single leg of it -across the bay. As the boat heeled over Maltham shifted his seat to the -weather side. This brought him a little in front of Ulrica, and below -her as she stood to steer. From under the bows came a soft hissing and -bubbling as the boat slid rapidly along. - -"Is she not wonderful?" Ulrica asked with a glowing enthusiasm. "Just -see how we are dropping that big sloop over yonder--and the Nixie not -half her size! But the _Nixie_ is well bred, you see, and the sloop is -not. She is as heavy all over as the _Nixie_ is clean and fine. Father -says that breeding is everything--in boats and in horses and in men. -He says that a gentleman is the finest thing that God ever created. It -was because the Southerners all were gentlemen that they whipped the -Yankees, you know." - -"But they didn't--the Yankees whipped them." - -"Only in the last few battles, father says--and those did not count, so -far as the principle is concerned," Ulrica answered conclusively. - -Maltham did not see his way to replying to this presentation of the -matter and was silent. Presently she went on, with a slight air of -apology: "I hope you did not mind my looking at you so much while we -were at dinner, Mr. Maltham. You see, except father, you are the only -gentleman I ever have had a chance to look at close, that way, in my -whole life. Father will not have much to do with the people living up -in town. Most of them are Yankees, and he does not like them. None of -them ever come to see us. The only people I ever talk with are our -neighbours; and they are just common people, you know--though some of -them are as good as they can be. And as father always is talking about -what a gentleman ought to be or ought not to be it is very interesting -really to meet one. That was the reason why I stared at you so. I hope -you did not mind." - -"I'm glad I interested you, even if it was only as a specimen of a -class," Maltham answered. "I hope that you found me a good specimen." -Her simplicity was so refreshing that he sought by a leading question -to induce a farther exhibition of it. "What is your ideal of a -gentleman?" he asked. - -"Oh, just the ordinary one," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. -"A gentleman must be absolutely brave, and must kill any man who -insults him--or, at least, must hurt him badly. He must be absolutely -honest--though he is not bound, of course, to tell all that he knows -when he is selling a horse. He must be absolutely true to the woman he -loves, and must never deceive her in any way. He must not refuse to -drink with another gentleman unless he is willing to fight him. He must -protect women and children. He must always be courteous--though he may -be excused for a little rudeness when he has been drinking and so is -not quite himself. He must be hospitable--ready to share his last crust -with anybody, and his last drink with anybody of his class. And he must -know how to ride and shoot and play the principal games of cards. Those -are the main things. You are all that, are you not?" - -She looked straight at him as she asked this question, speaking still -in the same entirely matter-of-fact tone. But Maltham did not look -straight back at her as he answered it. The creed that she set forth -had queer articles in it, but its essentials were searching--so -searching that his look was directed rather indefinitely toward the -horizon as he replied, a little weakly perhaps: "Why, of course." - -She seemed to be content with this not wholly conclusive answer; -but as he was not content with it himself, and rather dreaded a -cross-examination, he somewhat suddenly shifted the talk to a subject -that he was sure would engross her thoughts. "How splendidly the -_Nixie_ goes!" he said. "She is a racer, and no mistake!" - -"Indeed she is!" Ulrica exclaimed, with the fervour upon which he had -counted. "She is the very fastest boat on the bay. And then she is so -weatherly! Why, I can sail her into the very eye of the wind!" - -"Yes, she has the look of being weatherly. But she wouldn't be if you -didn't manage her so well. Who taught you how to sail?" - -"It was old Gustav Bergmann--one of the fishermen here on the Point, -you know. And he said," she went on with a little touch of pride, "that -he never could have made such a good sailor of me if I had not had it -in my blood--because I am a Swede." - -"But you are an American." - -Ulrica did not answer him immediately, and when she did speak it was -with the same curiously slow thoughtfulness that he had observed when -she was explaining the difference between her father's life and her own -life in the solitude of Minnesota Point. - -"I do not think I am," she said. "I do not know many American women, -but I am not like any American woman I know. You see, I am very like -my mother. Father says so, and I feel it--I cannot tell you just how I -feel it, but I do. For one thing, I am more than half a savage, father -says--like some of the wild Indians he has known. He is in fun, of -course, when he says that; but he really is right, I am sure. Did you -ever want to kill anybody, Mr. Maltham?" - -"No," said Maltham with a laugh, "I never did. Did you?" - -Ulrica remained grave. "Yes," she answered, "and I almost did it, too. -You see, it was this way: A man, one of the campers down on the Point, -was rude to me. He was drunk, I think. But I did not think about his -being drunk, and that I ought to make allowances for him. Somehow, I -had not time to think. Everything got red suddenly--and before I knew -what I was doing I had out my knife. The man gave a scream--not a cry, -but a real scream: he must have been a great coward, I suppose--and -jumped away just as I struck at him. I cut his arm a little, I think. -But I am not sure, for he ran away as hard as he could run. I was very -sorry that I had not killed him. I am very sorry still whenever I think -about it. Now that was not like an American woman. At least, I do not -know any American woman who would try to kill a man that way because -she really could not help trying to. Do you?" - -"No," Maltham answered, drawing a quick breath that came close to being -a gasp. Ulrica's entire placidity, and her argumentative manner, had -made her story rather coldly thrilling--and it was quite thrilling -enough without those adjuncts, he thought. - -She seemed pleased that his answer confirmed her own opinion. "Yes, I -think I am right about myself," she went on. "I am sure that it is my -Swedish blood that makes me like that. We do not often get angry, you -know, we Swedes: but when we do, our anger is rage. We do not think -nor reason. Suddenly we see red, as I did that day, and we want to -strike to kill. It is queer, is it not, that we should be made like -that?" - -Maltham certainly was discovering the strange thoughts that he had -set himself to search for. They rather set his nerves on edge. As she -uttered her calm reflection upon the oddity of the Swedish temperament -he shivered a little. - -"I am afraid that you are cold," she said anxiously. "Shall we go -about? Father will not like it if I make you uncomfortable." - -"I am not at all cold," he answered. "And the sailing is delightful. -Don't let us go about yet." - -"Well, if you are quite sure that you are not cold, we will not. I do -want to take you down to the inlet and show you what a glorious sea is -running on the lake to-day. It is only half a mile more." - -They sailed on for a little while in silence. The swift send of the -boat through the water seemed so to fill Ulrica with delight that she -did not care to speak--nor did Maltham, who was busied with his own -confused thoughts. Suddenly some new and startling concepts of manhood -and of womanhood had been thrust into his mind. They puzzled him, -and he was not at all sure that he liked them. But he was absolutely -sure that this curious and very beautiful woman who had uttered them -interested him more profoundly than any woman whom ever he had known. -That fact also bothered him, and he tried to blink it. That he could -not blink it was one reason why his thoughts were confused. Presently, -being accustomed to slide along the lines of least resistance, he gave -up trying. "After all," was his conclusion, so far as he came to a -conclusion, "it is only for a day." - - -VI - -[Illustration] - -As they neared the inlet the water roughened a little and the wind grew -stronger. Ulrica eased off the sheet, and steadied it with a turn -around the pin. In a few minutes more they had opened the inlet fairly, -and beyond it could see the lake--stretching away indefinitely until -its cold grey surface was lost against the cold grey sky. A very heavy -sea was running. In every direction was the gleam of white-caps. On the -beaches to the left and right of them a high surf was booming in. They -ran on, close-hauled, until they were nearly through the inlet and were -come into a bubble of water that set the boat to dancing like a cork. -Now and then, as she fell off, a wave would take her with a thump and -cover them with a cloud of spray. - -The helm was pulling hard, but Ulrica managed it as easily and as -knowingly as she had managed the setting of the sail--standing with -her feet well apart, firmly braced, her tall figure yielding to the -boat's motion with a superb grace. Suddenly a gust of wind carried -away her hat, and in another moment the great mass of her golden hair -was blowing out behind her in the strong eddy from the sail. Her face -was radiant. Every drop of her Norse blood was tingling in her veins. -Aslauga herself never was more gloriously beautiful--and never more -joyously drove her boat onward through a stormy sea. - -But Maltham did not perceive her beauty, nor did he in the least share -her glowing enthusiasm. He had passed beyond mere nervousness and was -beginning to be frightened. It seemed to him that she let the boat fall -off purposely--as though to give the waves a chance to buffet it, and -then to show her command over them by bringing it up again sharply into -the wind; and he was certain that if they carried on for another five -minutes, and so got outside the inlet, they would be swamped. - -"Don't you think that we had better go about?" he asked. It did not -please him to find that he had not complete control over his voice. - -"But it is so glorious," she answered. "Shall we not keep on just a -little way?" - -"No!" he said sharply. "We must go about at once. We are in great -danger as it is." He felt that he had turned pale. In spite of his -strong effort to steady it, his voice shook badly and also was a little -shrill. - -"Oh, of course," she replied, with a queer glance at him that he did -not at all fancy; "if you feel that way about it we will." The radiance -died away from her face as she spoke, and with it went her intoxication -of delight. And then her expression grew anxious as she looked about -her, and in an anxious tone she added: "Indeed you are quite right, Mr. -Maltham. We really are in a bad place here. I ought never to have come -out so far. We must try to get back at once. But it will not be easy. I -am not sure that the _Nixie_ will stand it. I am sure, though, that she -will do her best--and I will try to wear her as soon as I see a chance." - -She luffed a little, that she might get more sea-room to leeward, and -scanned the oncoming waves closely but without a sign of fear. "Now I -think I can do it," she said presently, and put up the helm. - -It was a ticklish move, for they were at the very mouth of the inlet, -but the _Nixie_ paid off steadily until she came full into the trough -of the sea. There she wallowed for a bad ten seconds. A wave broke -over the coaming of the cockpit and set it all aflow. Maltham went -still whiter, and began to take off his coat. It was with the greatest -difficulty that he kept back a scream. Then the boat swung around to -her course--Ulrica's hold upon the tiller was a very steady one--and in -another minute they were sliding back safely before the wind. In five -minutes more they were in the smooth water of the bay. - -Ulrica was the first to speak, and she spoke in most contrite tones. -"It was very, very wrong in me to do that, Mr. Maltham," she said. "And -it was wicked of me, too--for I have given my solemn promise to father -that I never will go out on the lake when it is rough at all. Please, -please forgive me for taking you into such danger in such a foolish -way. It was touch and go, you know, that we pulled through. Please say -that you forgive me. It will make me a little less wretched if you do." - -The danger was all over, and Maltham had got back both his color and -his courage again. "Why, it was nothing!" he said. "Or, rather, it was -a good deal--for it gave me a chance to see what a magnificent sailor -you are. And--and it was splendidly exciting out there, wasn't it?" - -"Wasn't it!" she echoed rapturously. "And oh," she went on, "I _am_ so -glad that you take it that way! It is a real load off my mind! Will you -please take the tiller for a minute while I put up my hair?" - -As she arranged the shining masses of her golden hair--her full -round arms uplifted, the wind pressing her draperies close about -her--Maltham watched her with a burning intentness. The glowing -reaction following escape from mortal peril was upon him and the tide -of his barely saved life was running full. In Ulrica's stronger nature -the same tide may have been running still more impetuously. For an -instant their eyes met. She flushed and looked away. - -He did not speak, and the silence seemed to grow irksome to her. She -broke it, but with a perceptible effort, as she took the tiller again. -"Do you know," she said, "I did think for a minute that you were -scared." She laughed a little, and then went on more easily: "And if -you really had been scared I should have known, of course, that you -were not a gentleman! Was it not absurd?" - -Her words roused him, and at the same time chilled him. "Yes, it was -very absurd," he answered not quite easily. And then, with presence of -mind added: "But I _was_ scared, and badly scared--for you. I did not -see how I possibly could get you ashore if the boat filled." - -"You could not have done it--we should have been drowned," Ulrica -replied with quiet conviction. "But because you are a gentleman it was -natural, I suppose, for you not to think about yourself and to worry -that way about me. You could not help it, of course--but I like it, all -the same." - -Maltham reddened slightly. Instead of answering her he asked: "Would -you mind running up along the Point and landing me on the other side of -the canal? I want to hurry home and get into dry things--and that will -save me a lot of time, you know." - -"Oh," she cried in a tone of deep concern, "are you not coming back -with me? I shall have a dreadful time with father, and I am counting on -you to help me through." - -Maltham had foreseen that trouble with the Major was impending, and -wanted to keep out of it. He disliked scenes. "Of course, if you want -me to, I'll go back with you," he answered. And added, drawing himself -together and shivering a little, "I don't believe that I shall catch -much cold." - -"What a selfish creature I am!" Ulrica exclaimed impetuously. "Of -course you must hurry home as fast as you can. What I shall get from -father will not be the half of what I deserve. And to think of my -thinking about your getting me off from a scolding at the cost of your -being ill! Please do not hate me for it--though you ought to, I am -sure!" - -Having carried his point, Maltham could afford to be amiable again. He -looked straight into her eyes, and for an instant touched her hand, as -he said: "No, I shall not--hate you!" His voice was low. He drawled -slightly. The break gave to his phrase a telling emphasis. - -It was not quite fair. He knew thoroughly the game that he was playing; -while Ulrica, save so far as her instinct might guide her, did not know -it at all. She did not answer him--and he was silent because silence -just then was the right move. And so they went on without words until -they were come to the landing-place beside the canal. Even then--for -he did not wish to weaken a strong impression--he made the parting a -short one: urging that she also must hurry home and get on dry clothes. -It did not strike her, either then or later, that he would have shown -a more practical solicitude in the premises had he not made her come -three miles out of her way. - -Indeed, as she sailed those three miles back again, her mind was in -no condition to work clearly. In a confused way, that yet was very -delightful, she went over to herself the events of that wonderful -day--in which, as she vaguely realized, her girlhood had ended and her -womanhood had begun. But she dwelt most upon the look that he had given -her when he told her, with the break in his phrase, that he would not -hate her; and upon the touch of his hand at parting, and his final -speech, also with a break in it: "I shall see you to-morrow--if you -care to have me come." - -At the club that evening Maltham wrote a very entertaining letter -to Miss Eleanor Strangford, in Chicago: telling her about the queer -old Major and his half-wild daughter, and how the daughter had taken -him out sailing and had brought him back drenched through. He was a -believer in frankness, and this letter--while not exhaustive--was -of a sort to put him right on the record in case an account of his -adventures should reach his correspondent by some other way. He would -have written it promptly in any circumstances. It was the more apposite -because he had promised to write every Sunday to Miss Strangford--to -whom he was engaged. - - -VII - -[Illustration] - -Maltham left his office early the next afternoon and went down the -Point again. He had no headache, the wind had shifted to the southward, -and all about him was a flood of spring sunshine. Yet even under these -cheerful conditions he found the Point rather drearily desolate. He -gave the graveyard a wide berth when he came to it, and looked away -from it. His desire was strong that he might forget where he had -seen Ulrica's name for the first time. He was not superstitious, -exactly; but his sub-consciousness that the direction in which he -was sliding--along the lines of least resistance--was at least -questionable, made him rather open to feelings about bad and good luck. - -Being arrived at Eutaw Castle, he inferred from what the Major said -and from what Ulrica looked that the domestic storm of the previous day -had been a vigorous one--and was glad that he had kept out of it. But -it had blown over pretty well, and his good-natured chaff about their -adventure swept away the few remaining clouds. - -"It is vehy handsome of yo', suh," said the Major, "to treat the matteh -as yo' do. My daughteh's conduct was most inexcusable--fo' when she -cahried yo' into that great dangeh she broke heh sacred wo'd to me." - -"But it was quite as much my fault as hers," Maltham answered. "I -should not have let her go. You see, the sailing was so delightfully -exciting that we both lost our heads a little. Luckily, I got mine back -before it was too late." - -"Yo' behaved nobly, suh, nobly! My daughteh has told me how youah only -thought was of heh dangeh, and how white yo' went when yo' realized -youah inability to save heh if the boat went down. Those weh the -feelings of a gentleman, suh, and of a vehy gallant gentleman--such as -yo' suahly ah. Youah conduct could not have been fineh, Mr. Maltham, -had yo' been bo'n and bred in South Cahrolina. Suh, I can say no mo' -than that!" - -Ulrica took little part in the talk. Her eyes were dull and she moved -languidly, as though she were weary. Not until her father left the -room--going to fetch his maps and charts, that he might demonstrate the -Point's glorious future--did she speak freely. - -"I could not sleep last night, Mr. Maltham," she said hurriedly. "I -lay awake the whole night--thinking about what I had done, and about -what you must think about me for doing it. If I had drowned you, after -breaking my word to father that way, it would have been almost murder. -It was very noble of you, just now, to say that it was as much your -fault as it was mine. But it was not. It was my fault all the way -through." - -"But the danger was just as great for you as it was for me," Maltham -answered. "You would have been drowned too, you know." - -"Oh, that would not have counted. It would not have counted at all. I -should have got only what I deserved." - -Maltham came close to her and took her hand. "Don't you think that it -would have counted for a good deal to _me_?" he asked. Then he dropped -her hand quickly and moved away from her as the Major re-entered the -room. - -Inasmuch as he would have been drowned along with her, this speech was -lacking in logic; but Ulrica, who was not on the lookout for logic -just then, was more than satisfied with it. Suddenly she was elate -again. For the dread that had kept her wakeful had vanished: his second -thoughts about the peril into which she had taken him had not set him -against her--he still was the same! She could not answer him with her -lips, but she answered him with her eyes. - -Maltham's feelings were complex as he saw the effect that his words -had upon her. He had made several resolutions not to say anything of -that sort to her again. Even if she did like flirting (as he had put -it in his own mind) it was not quite the thing, under the existing -conditions, for him to flirt with her. He resolutely kept the word -flirting well forward in his thoughts. It agreeably qualified the -entire situation. As he very well knew, Miss Strangford was not above -flirting herself. But it was not easy to classify under that head -Ulrica's sudden change in manner and the look that she had given him. -In spite of himself, his first impression of her would come back and -get in the way of the new impression that he very much wished to form. -When he first had seen her--only the day before, but time does not -count in the ordinary way in the case of those who have been close to -the gates of death together--he had felt the fire that was in her, and -had known that it slumbered. After what he had just seen in her eyes he -could not conquer the conviction that the fire slumbered no longer and -that he had kindled its strong flame. - -Nor did he wholly wish to conquer this conviction. It was thrillingly -delightful to think that he had gained so great a power over her, for -all her queenliness, in so short a time. Over Miss Strangford--the -contrast was a natural one--he had very little power. That young lady -was not queenly, but she had a notable aptitude for ruling--and came -by it honestly, from a father whose hard head and hard hand made him -conspicuous even among Chicago men of affairs. It was her strength that -had attracted him to her; and the discovery that with her strength was -sweetness that had made him love her. He was satisfied that she loved -him in return--but he could not fancy her giving him such a look as -Ulrica had just given him; still less could he fancy her whole being -irradiated by a touch and a word. - -And so he came again to the same half-formed conclusion that he had -come to in the boat on the preceding day: he would let matters drift -along pleasantly a little farther before he set them as they should be -with a strong hand. - -This chain of thought went through his mind while the Major was -exhibiting the maps and expounding the Point's future; and his -half-conclusion was a little hastened by the Major's abrupt stop, and -sudden facing about upon him with: "I feah, suh, that yo' do not quite -follow me. If I have not made myself cleah, suh, I will present the -matteh in anotheh way." - -Maltham shot a quizzical glance at Ulrica--which made her think that -she knew where his thoughts had been wool-gathering, and so brought -more light to her eyes--and answered with a becoming gravity: "The fact -is I didn't quite catch the point that you were making, Major, and I'll -be very much obliged if you'll take the trouble to go over it again." - -"It is no trouble--it is a pleasuah, suh," the Major replied with an -animated affability. And with that he was off again, and ran on for -an hour or more--until he had established the glorious future of -Minnesota Point in what he believed to be convincing terms. "When the -time to which I am looking fo'wa'd comes, Mr. Maltham, and it will come -vehy soon, suh," he said in enthusiastic conclusion, "it stands to -reason that the fortunes of this great metropolis of the No'thwest will -be fo'eveh and unchangeably established. Only I must wahn yo', suh, -that we must begin to get ready fo' it right away. We must take time by -the fo'lock and provide at once--I say at once, suh--fo' the needs of -that magnificent futuah that is almost heah now!" - -He took a long breath as he finished his peroration, and then came down -smiling to the level of ordinary conversation and added: "I feah, Mr. -Maltham, that I pehmit my enthusiasm to get away with me a little. I -feah I may even boah yo', suh. I promise not to say anotheh wohd on -the subject this evening. And now, as it is only a little while befo' -suppeh, we cannot do betteh, suh, than to take a drink." - -Maltham had not intended to stay to supper. He even had intended not -to. But he did--and on through the evening until the Major had to warn -him that he either must consent to sleep in Eutaw Castle or else -hurry along up the Point before the ferry-boat stopped running for the -night. The Major urged him warmly to stay. Finding that his invitation -certainly would not be accepted, he went off for a lantern--and was -rather put out when Maltham declined it and said that he could find his -way very well by the light of the stars. - -Actually, Maltham did not find his way very well by the light of the -stars. Two or three times he ran against trees. Once--this was while he -was trying to give the graveyard a wide offing--he stumbled over a root -and fell heavily. When he got up again he found that he had wrenched -his leg, and that every step he took gave him intense pain. But he was -glad of his flounderings against trees, and of his fall and the keen -pain that followed it--for he was savage with himself. - -And yet it was not his fault, he grumbled. Why had the Major gone off -that way to hunt up a lantern--and so left them alone? Toward the end -of his walk--his pain having quieted his excitement, and so lessened -his hatred of himself--he added much more lightly: "But what does a -single kiss amount to, after all?" - - -VIII - -[Illustration] - -It was on a day in the early autumn that Maltham at last decided -definitely--making effective his half-formed resolution of the -spring-time--to stop drifting and to set things as they should be with -a strong hand. But he had to admit, even as he formed this resolution, -that setting things quite as they should be no longer was within his -power. - -The summer had gone quickly, most astonishingly quickly, he thought; -and for the most part pleasantly--though it had been broken by -certain interludes, not pleasant, during which he had been even more -savage with himself than he had been during that walk homeward from -Eutaw Castle in the dark. But, no matter how it had gone, the summer -definitely was ended--and so were his amusing sessions with the Major -over the future of Minnesota Point, and his sails with Ulrica on the -lake and about the bay. Ice already had begun to form in the sheltered -parts of the harbour, and the next shift of wind into the North would -close the port for the winter by freezing everything hard and fast. All -the big ships had steamed away eastward. On the previous day he had -despatched the last vessel of his own line. His work for the season -was over, and he was ready to return to Chicago. In fact, he had his -berth engaged on that night's train. Moreover, in another month he was -to be married: in her latest letter Miss Strangford had fixed the day. -Then they were going over to the Riviera, and probably to Egypt. In -the spring they were coming back again, but not to Duluth nor even to -Chicago. He was to take charge of the Eastern office of the line, and -their home would be in New York. These various moves were so definite -and so final as to justify him in saying to himself, as he did say to -himself, that the Duluth episode was closed. - -He had hesitated about going down to Eutaw Castle to say good-bye, but -in the end had perceived that the visit was a necessity. The Major -and Ulrica knew that he was to leave Duluth when navigation was -closed for the winter--indeed, of late, Ulrica had referred to that -fact frequently--but he had not confided to them the remainder of his -rather radical programme. He meant to do that later by letter--from -the Riviera or from Egypt. In the mean time, until he was married and -across the Atlantic, it was essential to keep unbroken the friendly -relations which had made his summer--even with its bad interludes--so -keenly delightful to him; and to go away without paying a farewell -visit he knew would be to risk a rupture that very easily might lead -on to a catastrophe. Moreover, as he said to himself, there need not -be anything final about it. Even though the harbour did freeze, the -railways remained open--and it was only sixteen hours from Chicago to -Duluth by the fast train. To suggest that he might be running up again -soon would be a very simple matter: and would not be straining the -truth, for he knew that the pull upon him to run up in just that way -would be almost irresistibly strong. - -In fact, the pull was of such strength that all of his not excessive -will power had to be exerted to make him go away at all--at least, -to go away alone. Very many times he had thought of the possibility -of reversing his programme completely: of making his wedding journey -with Ulrica, and of writing from some far-off place to Miss Strangford -that he had happened to marry somebody else and that she was free. -But each time that he had considered this alternative he had realized -that its cost would come too high: a break with his own people, the -loss of the good berth open to him in New York, the loss of his share -of Miss Strangford's share of the grain-elevators and other desirable -properties which would come to her when her father died. But for these -practical considerations, as he frequently and sorrowingly had assured -himself, he would not have hesitated for a moment--being satisfied -that, aside from them, such a reversal of his plans would be better in -every way. For he knew that while Miss Strangford had and Ulrica had -not his formal promise to marry her, it was Ulrica who had the firmer -hold upon his heart; and he also knew that while Ulrica would meet his -decision against her savagely--and, as he believed, feebly--with her -passion, Miss Strangford would meet the reverse of that decision calmly -and firmly with her strength. The dilemma so nearly touched the verge -of his endurance that he even had contemplated evading it altogether -by shooting himself. But he had not got beyond contemplation. For that -sort of thing he was lacking in nerve. - -It was because facing what he knew was a final parting--even though -Ulrica would not know it--would be so bitter hard for him that he had -hesitated about making his visit of good-bye. But when he had decided -that it was a necessity--that the risk involved in not making it -outweighed the pain that it would cost him--he came about again: adding -to his argument, almost with a sob, that he could not go away like -that, anyhow--that he _must_ see her once more! - -And so he went down the Point again, knowing that he went for the last -time--and on much the same sort of a day, as it happened, as that on -which his first visit had been made: a grey, chill day, with a strong -wind drawing down the lake that tufted it with white-caps and that sent -a heavy surf booming in upon the shore. He had no headache, but he had -a heartache that was still harder to bear. - -He had intended to take the tram-car--that he might hurry down to the -Castle, and get through with what he had to do there, and so away -again quickly. But when he had crossed the canal he let the car go -off without him--for the good reason that the meeting and the parting -might not come so soon. And for this same reason he walked slowly, -irresolutely. Once or twice he halted and almost turned back. It all -was very unlike his brisk, assured advance on that far back day--ages -before, it seemed to him--when he went down the Point for the first -time. - -As he went onward, slowly, he was thinking about that day: how it had -been without intention that he turned eastward instead of westward -when he started on his walk; how a whim of the moment had led him to -cross the canal; how the mere chance of the three church-bound women -hurrying into the ferry-boat had prevented his immediate return. He -fell to wondering, dully, what "chance" is, anyway--this force which -with a grim humour uses our most unconsidered actions for the making or -the unmaking of our lives; and the hopeless puzzle of it all kept his -mind unprofitably employed until he had passed the last of the little -houses, and had gone on through the stunted pines, and so was come to -the desolate graveyard. - -He did not shun the graveyard, as he had shunned it all the summer -long. The need for that was past--now that, in reality, Ulrica's name -had come to be to him a name upon a grave. For a while he stood with -his arms resting on the broken fence, looking before him in a dull way -and feeling a dull surprise because he found the dismal place still -precisely as he remembered it. That in so very long a time it should -not have become more ruinous seemed to him unreasonable. Then he walked -on past the little church, still slowly and hesitatingly, and so came -at last to the Castle. Oddly enough, the Major was standing again at -the same lower window, and saw him, and came out to welcome him. For -a moment he had a queer feeling that perhaps it still was that first -day--that he might have been dozing in the pine woods, somewhere, and -that the past summer was all a dream. - -The Major was beaming with friendliness. "Aha, Masteh Geo'ge, I'm glad -to see yo' and to congratulate yo'!" he said heartily. And he gave -Maltham a cordial dig in the ribs as he added: "Yo' ah a sly dog, a -vehy sly dog, my boy, to keep youah secret from us! But I happened to -be up in town yestehday, and by the mehest chance I met Captain Todd, -of youah boat, and he told me why yo' ah going back to Chicago in such -a huhy, suh! It is a great match, a magnificent match that yo' ah -making, Geo'ge, and I congratulate yo' with all my haht. I should be -glad of the oppo'tunity to congratulate Miss Strangfo'd also. Fo' I am -not flattehing yo', Geo'ge, when I tell yo' that she could not have -found a betteh husband had she gone to look fo' him in South Cahrolina. -Suh, I can say no mo' than that!" - -The Major's speech was long enough, fortunately, for Maltham to get -over the shock of its beginning before he had to answer it. But even -with that breathing space his answer was so lame that the Major had to -invent an excuse for its lack of heartiness. "I don't doubt that afteh -youah chilly walk, Geo'ge, yo' ah half frozen," he said. "Come right in -and have a drink. It will do yo' good, suh. It will take the chill out -of youah bones!" - -Maltham was glad to accept this invitation, and the size of the drink -that he took did the Major's heart good. "That's right, Geo'ge!" he -said with great approval. "A South-Cahrolinian couldn't show a betteh -appreciation of good liquoh than that!" He raised his glass and -continued: "I drink, suh, to Miss Strangfo'd's health, and to youahs. -May yo' both have the long lives of happiness that yo' both desehve!" - -He put down his empty glass and added: "I will call Ulrica. She will -be glad to see yo' and to offeh yo' heh congratulations." He paused -for a moment, and then went on in a less cheerful tone: "But I must -wahn yo', Geo'ge, that she has a bad headache and is not quite hehself -to-day--and so may not manifest that wahm co'diality in regahd to youah -present and futuah happiness that she suahly feels. I confess, Geo'ge," -the Major continued anxiously, "I am not quite comfo'table about heh. -She seems mo' out of so'ts than a meah headache ought to make heh. And -fo' the last month and mo', as yo' may have obsehved youahself, she -has not seemed to be hehself at all. I don't mind speaking this way -frankly to yo', Geo'ge, fo' yo' know how my haht is wrapped up in heh. -As I once told yo', it was only my love fo' that deah child that kept -me alive when heh motheh left me," the Major's voice was very unsteady, -"and it is God's own truth that if anything went wrong with heh; if--if -I weh to lose heh too, Geo'ge, I suahly should want to give right up -and die. I could not live without heh--I don't think that I could live -without heh fo' a single day!" - -There were tears in the Major's eyes as he spoke, and his last word -was almost a sob. Maltham was very pale. He did not attempt an answer. - -"Thank yo', Geo'ge," the Major went on presently. "I see by youah looks -that I have youah sympathy. I am most grateful to yo' fo' it, most -grateful indeed!" In a moment he added: "Hahk! She's coming now! I heah -heh step outside. Hahk how heavy and slow it is--and she always as -light on heh feet as a bird! To heah heh walk that way almost breaks my -haht!" And then he checked himself suddenly, and tried to look rather -unusually cheerful as Ulrica entered the room. - - -IX - -[Illustration] - -Being braced to meet some sort of a storm, Maltham was rather put about -by not encountering it. Ulrica certainly was looking the worse for her -headache--her eyes were duller than usual, and there were dark marks -under them, and she was very pale; but she did not seem to be at all -excited, and the greeting that she gave him was out of the ordinary -only in that she did not offer him her hand. He drew a quick breath, -and the tense muscles of his mind relaxed. If she were taking it in -that quiet way, he thought, he had worked himself into heroics for -nothing. And then, quite naturally, he felt a sharp pang of resentment -because she did take it so quietly. Her calmness ruffled his self-love. - -As she remained silent, making no reference to Maltham's engagement, -the Major felt that the proprieties of the case were not being attended -to and prompted her. "I have been wishing Geo'ge joy and prospehrity, -my deah," he said. "Have yo' nothing to say to him youahself about his -coming happiness?" - -"Yes," she answered slowly, "I have a great deal to say to him--so much -that I am going to carry him off in the _Nixie_ to say it." She turned -to Maltham and added: "You will come with me for a last sail, will you -not?" - -Maltham hesitated, and then answered doubtfully: "Isn't it a little -cold for sailing to-day? Your father says that you are not feeling -well. I do think that it will be better not to go--unless you really -insist upon it, of course." - -"Yo' mustn't think of such a thing!" the Major struck in peremptorily. -"The weatheh is like ice. Yo' will catch yo' death of cold!" - -"It is no colder, father, than that day when I took George out in -the _Nixie_ for the first time--and it will do my head good," Ulrica -answered. And added, to Maltham: "I do insist. Come!" - -Against the Major's active remonstrance, and against Maltham's passive -resistance, she carried her point. "Come!" she said again--and led -Maltham out by the side door into the ragged garden. There she left him -for a moment and returned to her father--who was standing in a very -melancholy way before the fire. - -"Do not mind, father," she said. "It is the best thing for me--it is -the only thing for me." - -He looked at her inquiringly, puzzled by her words and by her vehement -tone. Suddenly she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. -"Remember always, father, that I have loved you with my whole heart -for almost my whole life long. And remember always," she went on with -a curiously savage earnestness, "that I am loving you with my whole -heart--with every bit of it--to-day!" - -"I am suah yo' ah, my daughteh," the Major answered, very huskily. - -She kissed him again, holding him tight in her arms. Then she unclasped -her arms with a sudden quick energy and swiftly left the room. - -She led Maltham silently to the boat, and silently--when she had cast -off the mooring--motioned to him to enter it. He found this silence -ominous, and tried to break it. But the commonplace words which he -wanted to speak would not come. - -And then, as he sat in the stern and mechanically steadied the tiller -while she hoisted the sail, the queer feeling again came over him that -it still was that wonderful first day. This feeling grew stronger as -all that he remembered so well was repeated: Ulrica's rapid movement -aft to the tiller; his own shifting of his seat; her quick loosing of -the centreboard as the wind caught them; and then the heeling over of -the boat, and her steady motion, and the bubbling hiss of the water -beneath the bow. It all so lulled him, so numbed his sense of time and -fact, that suddenly he looked up in her face and smiled--just as he -had done on that first day. - -[Illustration: "'I HAVE LOVED YOU WITH MY WHOLE HEART'"] - -But the look in Ulrica's eyes killed his smile, and brought him back -with a sharp wrench to reality. Her eyes no longer were dull. They were -glowing--and they seemed to cut into him like knives. - -"Well," she asked, "have you anything to say for yourself?" - -"No," he answered, "except that fate has been too strong for me." - -"Fate sometimes is held accountable for a great deal," she said dryly, -but with a catch in her voice. - -They were silent again, and for a long while. The boat was running down -the bay rapidly--even more rapidly, the wind being much stronger, than -on that first day. They could hear, as they had not heard then, the -surf crashing upon the outer beach of the Point. - -The silence became more than he could stand. "Can you forgive me?" he -asked at last. - -Ulrica looked at him with a curious surprise. "No," she answered quite -calmly. "Think for a moment about what you have done and about what you -intend to do. Do you not see that it is impossible?" - -"But I love you!" he cried eagerly. "I love you more than I can tell. -It is not my will that is separating us--it is fate!" - -Her look softened for an instant as he began, but as he ended it -hardened again. She did not answer him. A strong gust of wind heeled -the boat farther over. They were going at a slashing rate. Before them -the inlet was opening. The booming of the surf was very loud. - -He saw that his words had taken hold upon her, and repeated them: "I -do love you, Ulrica--and, oh, you don't know how very wretched I have -been! More than once in this past month I have been very near killing -myself." - -She gave him a searching look, and seemed satisfied that he spoke the -truth. "I am glad that you have wanted to kill yourself," she said -slowly and earnestly. They were at the mouth of the inlet. As she -spoke, she luffed sharply and they entered it close-hauled. - -"Yes," she repeated, speaking still more earnestly, "I am very glad of -that. It makes me feel much easier in my mind about what I am going to -do." - -Her tone startled him. He looked up at her quickly and anxiously. "What -are you going to do?" he asked. - -"Drown you," she answered simply. - -For an instant he did not take in the meaning of her words. Then his -face became very white, though he tried to smile. His voice shook as -he said: "I do not think that this is a good time for joking." The -boat was biting her way into the wind sharply, plunging and bucketing -through the partly spent waves which came in from outside. - -"You know that I am not joking," Ulrica answered very quietly. "I am -going to drown you, and to drown myself too. I have thought it all out, -and this seems the best thing to do. It is the best for father," her -voice trembled, "and it is the best," she went on again, firmly, "for -me. As for you, it does not matter whether it is the best for you or -not--it is what you deserve. For you are a liar and a traitor--a liar -and a traitor to me, and to that other woman too!" As she spoke these -last words her calmness left her, and there was the ring of passionate -anger in her tone. The fire that she had been smothering, at last was -in full blaze. - -They were at the very mouth of the inlet. The white-capped surface -of the lake swelled and tossed before them. The boat was wallowing -heavily. - -Maltham's paleness changed to a greenish-grey. He uttered a shrill -scream--a cry of weakly helpless terror. "Put about! For God's sake put -about!" he gasped. "We shall be drowned!" - -For answer, she hauled the sheet a little and brought the boat still -closer into the wind--heading straight out into the lake. "I told -you once that the _Nixie_ could sail into the wind's eye," she said, -coolly. "Now she is doing it. Does she not go well?" - -At that, being desperate, he rallied a little. Springing to his feet, -but standing unsteadily, he grasped the tiller and tried to shift the -helm. Ulrica, standing firmly, laid her hand flat against his breast -and thrust him away savagely--with such force that he reeled backward -and fell, striking against the combing and barely missing going over -the side. - -"You fool!" she exclaimed. "Do you not see that it is too late?" She -did not trouble herself to look at him. Her gaze was fixed in a keen -ecstasy on the great oncoming waves. - -What she said was true--it was too late. They were fairly out on the -open lake, and all possibility of return was gone. To try to go about -would be to throw the _Nixie_ into the trough of the sea--and so send -her rolling over like a log. At the best, the little boat could live in -that surge and welter for only a very few minutes more. - -Maltham did not attempt to rise. His fall had hurt him, and what little -was left of his spirit was cowed. He lay in a miserable heap, uttering -little whimpering moans. The complaining noise that he made annoyed -her. For the last time she looked at him, burning him for an instant -with her glowing eyes. "Silence, you coward!" she cried, fiercely--and -at her strong command he was still. Then her look was fixed on the -great oncoming waves again, and she cast him out from her mind. - -Even in her rage--partly because of it--Ulrica felt in every drop of -her Norse blood the glow and the thrill of this glorious battle with -great waters. The sheer delight of it was worth dying for--and so -richly worth living through to the very last tingling instant that she -steered with a strong and a steady hand. And again--as she stood firmly -on the tossing boat, her draperies blown close about her, her loosened -hair streaming out in golden splendour--she was Aslauga's very self. -Sorrow and life together were ending well for her--in high emotion -that filled and satisfied her soul. Magnificent, commanding, defiant, -she sailed on in joyful triumph: glad and eager to give herself -strongly to the strong death-clasp of the waves. - -[Illustration] - - - - -The Death-Fires of Les Martigues - - -I - -"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" - -That is one of our old sayings here in Provence. I used to laugh at it -when I was young. I do not laugh at it now. When those words come into -my heart, and they come often, I go by the rough hard way that leads -upward to Notre Dame de la Garde until I come to the Crime Cross--it is -a wearying toil for me to get up that steep hill-side, I am so stiff -and old now--and there I cast fresh stones upon the heap at the foot of -the cross. Each stone cast there, you know, is a prayer for forgiveness -for some hidden crime: not a light fault, but a crime. The stones must -be little stones, yet the heap is very wide and high--though every -winter, when the great mistrals are blowing across the Etang de Berre, -the little stones are whirled away down the hill-side. I do not know -how this custom began, nor when; but it is a very old custom with us -here in Les Martigues. - -Once in every year I go up to the Crime Cross by night. This is on -All Souls Eve. First I light the lamp over Magali's breast where she -lies sleeping in the graveyard: going to the graveyard at dusk, as the -others do, in the long procession that creeps up thither from the three -parts of our town--from Jonquieres, and the Isle, and Ferrieres--to -light the death-fires over the dear dead ones' graves. I go with the -very first, as soon as the sun is down. I like to be alone with Magali -while I light the little lamp that will be a guide for her soul through -that night when souls are free; that will keep it safe from the devils -who are free that night too. I do not like the low buzzing of voices -which comes later, when the crowd is there, nor the broken cries and -sobs. And when her lamp is lit, and I have lit my mother's lamp, I -hurry away from the graveyard and the moaning people--threading my -steps among the graves on which the lights are beginning to glimmer, -and through the oncoming crowd, and then by the lonely path through the -olive-orchards, and so up the stony height until I come at last to the -Crime Cross--panting, aching--and my watch begins. - -[Illustration: MARIUS] - -Up on that high hill-side, open to the west, a little of the dying -daylight lingers. Eastward, like a big black mirror, lies the great -etang; and far away across its still waters the mountain chain -above Berre and Rognac rises purple-grey against the darker sky. -In the west still are faint crimson blotches, or dashes of dull -blood-red--reflected again, and made brighter, in the Etang de Caronte: -that stretches away between the long downward slopes of the hills, -on which stone-pines stand out in black patches, until its gleaming -waters merge into the faint glow upon the waters of the Mediterranean. -Above me is the sanctuary of Notre Dame de la Garde, a dark mass on -the height above the olive-trees: of old a refuge for sinful bodies, -and still a refuge where sinful souls may seek grace in prayer from -their agony. And below me, on the slope far downward, is the graveyard: -where the death-fires multiply each moment, as more and more lamps -are lighted, until at last it is like a little fallen heaven of tiny -stars. Only in its midst is an island of darkness where no lamps are. -That is where the children lie together: the blessed innocents who have -died sinless, and who wander not on All Souls Eve because when sweet -death came to them their pure spirits went straight home to God. And -beyond the graveyard, below it, is the black outspread of the town: its -blackness deepened by a bright window here and there, and by the few -street lamps, and by the bright reflections which shine up from the -waters of its canals. - -Seeing all this--yet only half seeing it, for my heart is full of other -things--I sit there at the foot of the Crime Cross in the darkness, -prayerful, sorrowful, while the night wears on. Sometimes I hear -footsteps coming up the rocky path, and then the shadowy figure of -a man or of a woman breaks out from the gloom and suddenly is close -beside me--and I hear the rattle of little stones cast upon the heap -behind me, on the other side of the cross. Presently, the rite ended, -whoever it is fades back into the gloom again and passes away. And I -know that another sinful soul has been close beside my sinful soul for -a moment: seeking in penitent supplication, as I am seeking, rest -in forgiveness for an undiscovered crime. But I am sure that none of -them sees--as I see in the gloom there always--a man's white face on -which the moonlight is shining, and beyond that white face the glint -of moonlight on a raging sea; and I am sure that on none of their -blackened souls rests a burden as heavy as that which rests on mine. - -I am very weary of my burden, and old and broken too. It is my comfort -to know that I shall die soon. But, also, the thought of that comfort -troubles me. For I am a lone man, and childless. When I go, none -of Magali's race, none of my race, will be left alive here in Les -Martigues. Our death-fires will not be lighted. We shall wander in -darkness on All Souls Eve. - - -II - -"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" - -My old mother, God rest her, said that to me when first she began to -see that my love was set on Magali--and saw, too, that I was winning -from Magali the love that belonged to Jan, who had her promise. - -"It is an old man's lifetime, mother," I said, "since a wolf has been -seen near Les Martigues." And I laughed and kissed her. - -"Worse than a wolf is a heart that covets what it may not have, -Marius," she answered. "Magali is as good as Jan's wife, and you know -it. For a year she has been promised to him. She is my dead sister's -child, and she is in my care--and in your care too, because you and -she and I are all that is left of us, and you are the head of our -house, the man. You are doing wickedness in trying to take her away -from Jan--and Jan your own close friend, who saved your life out of the -sea. The match is a good match for Magali, and she was contented with -it until you--living here close beside her in your own house--began -to steal away her heart from him. It is rascal work, Marius, that you -are doing. You are playing false as a house-father and false as a -friend--and God help me that I must speak such words to my own son! -That is why I say, and I say it solemnly, 'God keep you from the -she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!' That desire has no right -to be in your heart, Marius. Drag it out of your heart and cast it -away!" - -But I only laughed and kissed her again, and told her that I would -take good care of myself if a she-wolf tried to eat me--and so I went -away, still laughing, to my fishing in the Gulf of Fos. - -But I did not laugh when I was alone in my boat, slipping down the -Etang de Caronte seaward. What she had said had made me see things -clearly which until then had been half hid in a haze. We had slipped -into our love for each other, Magali and I, softly and easily--just as -my boat was slipping down the etang. Every day of our lives we were -together, in the close way that housemates are together in a little -house of four rooms. Before I got up in the morning I could hear her -moving near me, only a thin wall between us; and her movements, again, -were the last sounds that I heard at night. She waited on me at my -meals. She helped my mother to mend my clothes--the very patches on my -coat would bring to my mind the sight of her as she sat sewing at night -beside the lamp. We were as close together as a brother and a sister -could be; and in my dulness I had fancied for a long while that what I -had felt for her was only what a brother would feel. - -What first opened my eyes a little was the way that I felt about it -when she gave her promise to Jan. For all our lives Jan and I had been -close friends: and most close since that day when the squall struck our -boats, as we lay near together, and I went overboard, and Jan--letting -his own boat take its chances--came overboard after me because he knew -that I could not swim. It was by a hair's-breadth only that we were not -drowned together. After we were safe I told him that my life was his. -And I meant it, then. Until Magali came between us I would have died -for him with a right good will. After that I was ready enough that he -should do the dying--and so be gone out of my way. - -When he got Magali's promise, I say, my ugly feeling against him began. -But it was not very strong at first, and I was not clear about it in my -own mind. All that I felt was that, somehow, he had got between me and -the sun. For one thing, I did not want to be clear about it. Down in -the roots of me I knew that I had no right to that sunshine, and that -Jan had--and I could not help thinking about how he had come overboard -after me and had held me up there in the tumbling sea, and how I had -told him that my life was his. But with this went a little thin -thought, stirring now and then in the bottom of my mind though I would -not own to it, that in giving him my life--which still was his if he -wanted it--I had not given him the right to spoil my life for me while -leaving me still alive. And I did my best not to think one way or the -other, and was glad that it all was a blur and a haze. - -And all the while I was living close beside Magali in that little -house, with the sound of her steps always near me and the sound of her -voice always in my ears. She had a very sweet voice, with a freshness -and a brightness in it that seemed to me like the brightness of her -eyes--and Magali's great black eyes were the brightest eyes that ever I -saw. Even in Arles, where all the women are beautiful, there would be -a buzz among the people lining Les Lices when Magali walked there of -a feast-day, wearing the beautiful dress that our women wear here in -Provence. To look at her made you think of an Easter morning sun. - - -III - -"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" - -My mother's words kept on ringing in my ears after I had left her. -Suddenly the haze was gone and I saw clearly--and I knew that my -heart's deep desire was to have Magali for my very own. And with that -sudden coming of clear sight I knew, too, that I could have her. Out -of the past came a crowd of memories which proved it to me. In my dull -way, I say, I had fancied that I loved Magali as a sister, and I had -tried to keep that fancy always by me in my haze. But with the haze -gone--swept away by my mother's words as the mistral sweeps away our -Mediterranean fogs--I knew that Magali never had been the fool that I -had been. - -I remembered her looks and her ways with me from the very day when she -came to us, when she was just turned of sixteen: how she used sometimes -to lay her hand lightly on my shoulder, how she would bend over to look -at the net that I was mending until her hair brushed against my cheek -or my forehead, how she always was bringing things to show me that I -could not see rightly unless she stood very close at my side, and most -of all how a dozen times a day she would be flashing at me her great -black eyes. And I remembered how moody and how strange in her ways she -was just before Jan got his promise from her; and how, when she told -me that her promise was given, she gave me a look like none that ever -I had from her, and said slowly: "The fisherman who will not catch any -fish at all because he cannot catch the fish he wants most--is a fool, -Marius!" - -Yet even then I did not understand; though, as I say, my eyes were -opened a little and I had the feeling that Jan had got between me -and the sun. That feeling grew stronger because of the way that she -treated him and treated me. Jan was for hurrying the marriage, but she -kept him dangling and always was putting him off. As for me, I got all -sides of her moods and tempers. Sometimes she scarcely would speak to -me. Sometimes she would give me looks from those big black eyes of -hers that thrilled me through! Sometimes she would hang about me in a -patient sad way that made me think of a dog begging for food. And the -colour so went out of her face that her big black eyes looked bigger -and blacker still. - -Then it was that I began to find in the haze that was about me a -refuge--because I did not want to see clear. I let my thoughts go out -to Magali, and stopped them before they got to Jan. It would be time -enough, I reasoned--though I did not really reason it: I only felt -it--to think about him when I had to. For the passing hours it was -enough to have the sweetness of being near Magali--and that grew to -be a greater sweetness with every fresh new day. Presently I noticed -that her colour had come back again; and it seemed to me--though that -may have been only because of my new love of her--that she had a new -beauty, tender and strange. Certainly there was a new brightness, a -curiously glowing brightness, in her eyes. - -For Jan, things went hardly in those days. Having her promise, he had -rights in her--as we say in Provence. But he did not get many of his -rights. Half the time when he claimed her for walks on the hill-sides -among the olive-orchards, she would not go with him--because she had -her work to do at home, she said. And there was I, where her work was, -at home! For a while Jan did not see beyond the end of his nose about -it. I do not think that ever it crossed his mind to think of me in the -matter--not, that is, until some one with better eyes than his eyes -helped him to see. For he knew that I was his friend, and I suppose -that he remembered what I had told him about my life being his. And -even when his eyes were helped, he would not at first fully believe -what he must plainly have seen. But he soon believed enough to make him -change his manner toward me, and to make him watch sharp for something -that would give him the right to speak words to me which would bring -matters to a fair settlement by blows. And I was ready, as I have -said--though I would not fairly own it to myself--to come to blows with -him. For I wanted him dead, and out of my way. - -And so my mother's words, which had made me at last see clearly, stayed -by me as I went sailing in my boat softly seaward down the etang. And -they struck deeper into me because Jan's boat was just ahead of mine; -and the sight of him, and the thought of how he had saved my life only -to cross it, made me long to run him down and drown him, and so be quit -of him for good and all. I made up my mind then that, whether I killed -him or left him living, it would be I who should have Magali and not he. - - -IV - -"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" - -My mother said that again to me when I came home that night from my -fishing; and she said it to me often as the days went on. She saw the -change that had come to me, and she knew what was in my soul. It is -not wonderful, when you stop to think about it, that a man's mother -should know what is in his soul: for the body in which that soul is, -the living home of it, is a part of her own. And she grew sad and -weary-looking when she found that her words had no hold on me, and -there came into her eyes the sorrowful look that comes into the eyes of -old people who are soon to die. - -But Magali's eyes were the only eyes that I cared for then, and they -seemed to me to grow brighter and brighter every day. When she and I -walked in the olive-orchards together in the starlight the glow of them -outshone the star-glow. It seemed to light up my heart. - -I do not think that we talked much in those walks. I do not seem to -remember our talking. But we understood each other, and we were agreed -about what we were to do. I was old enough to marry as I pleased, but -Magali was not--she could not marry without my mother's word. We meant -to force that word. Some day we would go off in my boat together--over -to Les Saintes Maries, perhaps; or perhaps to Marseille. It did not -matter where we went. When we came back again, at the end of two or -three days, my mother no longer could deny us--she would have to give -in. And no one would think the worse of Magali: for that is our common -way of settling a tangled love-matter here in Provence. - -But I did not take account of Jan in my plans, and that was where I -made a mistake. Jan had just as strong a will as I had, and every -bit of his will was set upon keeping Magali for himself. I wanted -her to break with him entirely, but that she would not do. She was a -true Provencale--and I never yet knew one of our women who would rest -satisfied with one lover when she could have two. If she can get more -than two, that is better still. While I hung back from her, Magali was -more than ready to come to me; but when she found me eager after her, -and knew that she had a grip on me, she danced away. - -And so, before long, Jan again had his walks with her in the -olive-orchards by starlight just as I did, and likely enough her eyes -glowed for him just as they did for me. When they were off that way -together I would get into a wild-beast rage over it. Sometimes I would -follow them, fingering my knife. I suppose that he felt like that when -the turn was mine. Anyhow, the love-making chances which she gave -him--even though in my heart I still was sure of her--kept me always -watching him; and I could see that he always was watching me. Very -likely he felt sure of her too, and that was his reason--just as it was -my reason--for not bringing our matter to a fighting end. I was ready -enough to kill him, God knows. Unless his eyes lied when he looked at -me, he was ready to kill me. - -And in that way the summer slipped past and the autumn came, and -neither of us gained anything. I was getting into a black rage over -it all. Down inside of me was a feeling like fire in my stomach that -made me not want to eat, and that made what I did eat go wrong. My poor -mother had given up trying to talk to me. She saw that she could not -change my way--and, too, I suppose that she pretty well understood it -all: for she had lived her life, and she knew the ways of our men and -of our women when love stings them here in Provence. Only, her sadness -grew upon her with her hopelessness. What I remember most clearly as -I think of her in those last days is her pale old face and the dying -look in her sorrowful eyes. - -But seeing her in that way grief-struck only made my black rage -blacker and the fire in my stomach burn hotter. I had the feeling that -there was a devil down there who all the time was getting bigger and -stronger: and that before long he and I would take matters in hand -together and settle them for good and all. As for keeping on with -things as they were, it was not to be thought of. Better than much more -of such a hell-life would be ending everything by killing Jan. - -What made me hang back from that was the certainty that if I did kill -him--even in a fair fight, with his chance as good as mine--I would -lose Magali beyond all hope: for the gendarmes would have me away in a -whiff to jail--and then off would go my head, or, what would be just -as bad, off I would go head and all to Cayenne. It was no comfort to -me to know that Magali would almost cry her eyes out over losing me. -Of course she would do that, being a Provencale. But before her eyes -were quite out she would stop crying; and then in a moment she would -be laughing again; and in another moment she would be freshly in love -once more--with some man who was not murdered and who was not gone for -his lifetime over seas. And all that, also, would be because she was a -Provencale. - - -V - -All the devils are let loose on earth on All Souls Eve--that is a fact -known to everybody here in Provence. But whether it was one of those -loosed devils, or the devil that had grown big in my own inside, that -made me do what I did I do not know. What I do know, certainly, is that -about dusk on All Saints Day the thought of how I could force things to -be as I wanted them to be came into my heart. - -My thought was not a new thought, exactly. It was only that I would do -what we had planned to do to make my mother give in to us: get Magali -into my boat and carry her off with me for a day or two to Les Saintes. -But it came to me with the new meaning that in that way I could make -Magali give in to me too. When we came back she would be ready enough -to marry me, and my mother would be for hurrying our marrying along. -It all was as plain and as sure as anything could be. And, as I have -said, nobody would think the worse of Magali afterward; because that -way of cutting through such difficulties is a common way with us in -Provence. - -And All Souls Eve was the time of all times for doing it. The whole -town is in commotion then. In the churches, when the Vespers of All -Saints are finished, the Vespers of the Dead are said. Then, just -after sunset, the streets are crowded with our people hurrying to -the graveyard with their lanterns for the graves. Nothing is thought -about but the death-fires. From all the church towers--in Jonquieres, -in the Isle, in Ferrieres--comes the sad dull tolling of bells. After -that, for an hour or more, the town is almost deserted. Only the very -old, and the very young, and the sick with their watchers, and the -bell-ringers in the towers, are left there. Everybody else is in the -graveyard, high up on the hill-side: first busied in setting the lights -and in weeping over dead loved ones; and then, when the duty to the -dead ones is done with, in walking about through the graveyard to see -the show. In Provence we take a great interest in every sort of show. - -Magali and I had no death-fires to kindle, for in the graveyard were -no dead of ours. Our people were of Les Saintes Maries, and there -their graves were--and my father, who was drowned at his fishing, had -no grave at all. But we went always to the graveyard on All Souls -Eve, and most times together, that we might see the show with the -others and enjoy the bustle of the crowd. And so there was nothing out -of the common when I asked her to come with me; and off we started -together--leaving my old mother weeping at home for my dead father, who -could have no death-fire lit for him because his bones were lying lost -to us far away in the depths of the sea. - -Our house was in the eastern quarter of the town, in Jonquieres. To -reach the graveyard we had to cross the Isle, and go through Ferrieres, -and then up the hill-side beyond. But I did not mean that we should do -that; and when we had crossed the Canal du Roi I said to Magali that we -would turn, before we went onward, and walk down past the Fish-market -to the end of the Isle--that from there we might see the lights glowing -in the dusk on the slope rising above us black against the western sky. -We had done that before--it is a pretty sight to see all those far-off -glittering points of light above, and then to see their glittering -reflections near by in the water below--and she willingly came with me. - -But I had more in view. Down at the end of the Isle, along with the -other boats moored at the wharf there to be near the Fish-market, my -boat was lying; and when we were come close to her I said suddenly, as -though the thought had entered my head that minute, that we would go -aboard of her and run out a little way--and so see the death-fires more -clearly because they would be less hidden by the shoulder of the hill. -I did not have to speak twice. Magali was aboard of the boat on the -instant, and was clapping her hands at the notion--for she had, as all -our women have, a great pleasure in following any sudden fancy which -promises something amusing and also a little strange. And I was quick -after her, and had the lines cast off and began to get up the sail. - -"Oh," she said, "won't the oars do? Need we bother with the sail for -such a little way?" - -But I did not answer her, and went on with what I was doing, while -the boat drifted quickly out from land before the gusts of wind which -struck us harder and harder as we cleared the point of the Isle. Until -then I had not thought about the weather--my mind had been full of the -other and bigger thought. The gusts of wind waked me up a little, and -as I looked at the sky I began to have doubts that I could do what I -wanted to do; for it was plain that a gale was rising which would make -ticklish work for me even out on the Gulf of Fos--and would make pretty -near impossible my keeping on to Les Saintes over the open sea. And I -had about made up my mind that we must go back, and that I must carry -out my plan some other time, when there came a hail to us from the -shore. - -"Where are you going?" called a voice--and as we turned our looks -shoreward there was Jan. He had been following us, I suppose--just as I -sometimes had followed him. - -Before I could answer him, Magali spoke. "We are going out on the water -to see the death-fires, Jan," she said. "We are going only a very -little way." - -Her words angered me. There was something in them that seemed to show -that he had the right to question her. That settled me in my purpose. -Storm or no storm, on I would go. And I brought the boat up to the -wind, so as to lay our course straight down the Etang de Caronte, and -called out to him: "We are going where you cannot follow. Good-bye!" - -And then a gust of wind heeled us over, and we went on suddenly with -a dash--as a horse goes when you spur him--and the water boiled and -hissed under our bows. In another half-minute we were clear of the -shelter of the point, and then the wind came down on us off the hills -in a rush so strong that I had to ease off the sheet sharply--and I had -a queer feeling about what was ahead of me out on the Gulf of Fos. - -"Marius! Marius! What are you doing?" Magali cried in a shiver of -fright: for she knew by that time that something was back of it all in -my mind. As she spoke I could see through the dusk that Jan was running -up the sail of his boat, and in a minute more would be after us. - -"I am doing what I ought to have done long ago," I said. "I am taking -you for my own. There is nothing to fear, dear Magali. You shall not -be in danger. I had meant to take you to Les Saintes. But a gale is -rising and we cannot get to Les Saintes to-night. We will run across -the Gulf of Fos and anchor in the Grau de Gloria. There is a shepherd's -hut near the Grau. I will make a fire in it and you can sleep there -comfortably, while I watch outside. After all, it makes no difference -where we go. I shall have carried you off--when we go back you must be -my wife." - -She did not understand at first. She was too much frightened with the -suddenness of it all, and with the coming of Jan, and with the boat -flying on through the rushing of the wind. I looked back and saw that -Jan had got away after us. Dimly I could make out his sail through the -dusk that lay thick upon the water. Beyond it and above it was a broad -patch of brightness where all the death-fires were burning together in -the graveyard. We had come too far to see any longer those many points -of light singly. In a mass, they made against the black hill-side a -great bright glow. - - -VI - -"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" - -My mother's words seemed to sound in my ears loudly, coming with the -rush of wind that eddied around me out of the sail's belly. They gave -me a queer start, as the thought came with them that here at last my -heart's deep desire would be mine presently--if only I could snatch it -and keep it from the she-wolf of the sea. - -Magali was silent--half standing, half sitting, against the weather -side of the boat, close in front of me as I stood at the tiller with -the sheet in my hand. She had got over her fright. I could tell that by -the brightness of her eyes, and by the warm colour in her cheeks that -I had a glimpse of as we flashed past the break in the hills where the -Mas Labillon stands. And in that moment while the dusk was thinned a -little I could see, too, that she was breathing hard. I know what our -women are, and I know what she was feeling. Our women like to be fought -for, and any one of them gladly would have been in Magali's place--with -the two strongest and handsomest men in Les Martigues in a fair way to -come to a death-grip for her in the whirl of a rising storm. - -Back in the dusk, against the faint glow of the death-fires, I could -see the sail of Jan's boat dipping and swaying with the thrusts of the -wind-gusts as it came on after me. It had gained a little; and I knew -that it would gain more, for Jan's boat was a speedier boat than mine -on the wind. Close-hauled, I could walk away from him; but in running -down the Etang de Caronte I had no choice in my sailing. Out on the -Gulf of Fos, if I dared take that chance, and if he dared follow me, -I could bear up to windward and so shake him off--making for the Anse -d'Auguette and taking shelter there. But even my hot blood chilled a -little at the thought of going out that night on the Gulf of Fos. When -we were down near the end of the etang--close to the Salines, where it -is widest--the wind that pelted down on us from the hills was terribly -strong. It was hard to stand against even there, where the water was -smooth. Outside, it would be still stronger, and the water would be all -in a boil. And at the end, to get into the Anse d'Auguette, we should -have to take the risk of a roaring sea abeam. - -But any risk was better than the risk of what might happen if Jan -overhauled me. Now that I fairly had Magali away from him, I did not -want to fight him. What might come in a fight in rough water--where the -winds and the waves would have to be reckoned with, and with the most -careful reckoning might play tricks on me--was too uncertain; while -if I could stand him off and get away from him, so that even for one -night I could keep Magali with me, the game would be won. After that, -if he wanted it, I would fight him as much as he pleased. - -The thought that I would win--in spite of Jan and in spite of the -storm, too--made all my blood tingle. More by habit than anything else -I sailed the boat: for my eyes were fixed on Magali's eyes, shining -there close to me, and my heart was full of her. We did not speak, but -once she turned and looked at me--bending forward a little, so that her -face was within a foot of mine. What she saw in my eyes was so easy to -read that she gave all at once a half-laugh and a half-sob--and then -turned away and peered through the blustering darkness toward Jan's -sail. Somehow, the way she did that made me feel that she was holding -the balance between us; that she was waiting--as the she among wild -beasts waits while the males are fighting for her--for the stronger of -us to win. After that I was ready to face the Gulf of Fos. - -The time for facing the gulf was close on me, too. We had run through -the canal of the Salines and were out in the open water of Bouc--the -great harbour at the mouth of the etang. The gale roared down on us, -now that there was little land to break it, and we began to hear the -boom of the waves pounding on the rocks outside. I luffed well into the -wind and bore up for the narrows opening seaward where the Fort de Bouc -light-house stands. The water still was not rough enough to trouble us. -It would not be rough until we were at the very mouth of the narrows. -Then, all at once, would come the crush and fury of the wind and sea. -I knew what it would be like: and again a chill shot through me at -the thought of risking everything on that one great chance. But I -had one thing to comfort me: the moon had risen--and while the light -came brokenly, as the clouds thinned and thickened again, there was -brightness enough even at the darkest for me to lay a course when I -got out among the tumbling waves. Yet only a man half mad with passion -would have thought of fronting such a danger; and even I might have -held back at the last moment had I not been stung to go on. - -Jan had so gained on me in the run down the etang that as we came out -from the canal of the Salines his boat was within less than a dozen -rods of mine; and as I hauled my sheet and bore up for the narrows he -shot down upon us and for a moment was almost under our stern. And at -that Magali gave a little jump and a half-gasp, and laid her hand upon -mine, crying: "Marius! Quick! Sail faster! He will take me from you! -Get me away! Get me away!" - -And then I knew that she no longer balanced us, but that her heart was -for me. After that I would have faced not only the Gulf of Fos but the -open Mediterranean in the worst storm that ever blew. - - -VII - -"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" - -The words were in my ears again as we went flying on toward the -narrows--with the reflection of the flame in the light-house making -a broad bright path for us, and the flame itself rising high before -us against the cloud-rack like a ball of fire. But God was not with -me then, and I gave those warning words no heed. I was drunk with the -gladness that came to me when Magali made her choice between us; and -all that I thought was that even if we did go down together, out there -in the Gulf of Fos, I still would be keeping her from Jan and holding -her for my own. That there might be any other ending for us never -crossed my mind. - -Jan did not think, I suppose, that I would dare to go outside the -harbour. He was in a rage too, no doubt; but, still, he must have been -a good deal cooler than I was--for a rage of hate does not boil in the -very bones of a man, as a rage of love does--and so cool enough to know -that it was sheer craziness to take a boat out into that sea. What I -meant to do must have come to him with suddenness--as we drew so close -to the light-house that the flame no longer was reflected ahead of us, -and the narrows were open over my starboard bow, and I let the boat -fall off from the wind and headed her into the broken water made by -the inroll of half-spent waves. In my run close-hauled I had dropped -him, but not so much as I thought I should, and as I came on the wind -again--and hung for a moment before gathering fresh headway--he ranged -up once more within hail. - -"Where are you going? Are you crazy?" he called out--and though he must -have shouted with all the strength of his big lungs his voice came thin -through the wind to us, and broken by the pounding of the sea. - -"Where you won't dare to follow!" I called back to him--and we went -rushing on below the big old fort, that carries the light on its tower, -through the short passage between the harbour and the Gulf of Fos. - -Something he answered, but what it was I do not know: for as we cleared -the shelter of the fort--but while the tail of rock beyond it still was -to windward, so that I could not luff--down with a crash on us came -the gale. I could only let fly the sheet--but even with the sheet all -out over we went until the sail was deep in the water, and over the -leeward gunwale the waves came hissing in. I thought that there was the -end of it; but the boat had such way on her that even on her beam ends -and with the sail dragging she went on until we had cleared the rocks; -and then I luffed her and she rose slowly, and for the moment was safe -again with her nose in the wind. - -Magali's face was dead white--like a dead woman's face, only for her -shining eyes. She fell to leeward as the boat went over--I could not -spare a hand to save her--and struck hard against the gunwale. When the -boat righted and she got up again her forehead was bleeding. On her -white face the blood was like a black stain. But she put her hand on -mine and said: "I am not frightened, Marius. I love you!" - -Jan was close aboard again. As our way had deadened he had overhauled -us; and because he saw what had happened to my boat he was able to -bring his boat through the narrows without going over. - -"Marius! Marius! For God's sake, for Magali's sake, put about!" he -shouted. "It is the only chance to save her. Put about, I say!" - -He was only a little way to leeward of us, but I barely made out his -words. The wind was roaring past us, and the waves were banging like -cannon on the rocks close by. - -What he said was the truth, and I knew it. I knew that the gale was -only just beginning, and that no boat could live through it for -another hour. And then one of the devils loose on that All Souls Eve, -or perhaps it was my own devil inside of me, put a new evil thought -into my heart: making clear to me how I might get rid of Jan for good -and all, and without its ending in my losing my head or in my losing -Magali by being sent overseas. It was a chance, to be sure, and full of -danger. But just then I was ready for any danger or for any chance. - -[Illustration: "THE OTHERS WERE UPCAST ON THE ROCKS"] - -"Lie down in the bottom of the boat, Magali," I called sharply. "That -is the safest place for you. We are going about." - -I spoke the truth to Magali; but, also, I did not want her to see what -happened. She did what I told her to do, and then I began to wear the -boat around. How I did it without swamping, I do not know. Perhaps the -devils of All Souls Eve held up my mast through the black moments while -we lay wallowing in the trough of the sea. But I did do it; and when I -was come about I headed straight for Jan's boat--lying dead to leeward -of me, not twenty yards away. The clouds thinned suddenly and almost -the full light of the moon was with us. We could see each other's faces -plainly--and in mine he saw what I meant to do. - -"It will be all of us together, Marius!" he called to me. "Do you want -to murder Magali too?" - -But I did not believe that it would be all of us together: for I knew -that his boat was an old one, and that mine was new and strong. And, -also, the devils had me in their hold. The gale was behind me, driving -me down upon him like a thunder-bolt. As I shot close to him the moon -shone out full for a moment through a rift in the clouds. In that -moment I saw his face clearly. The moonlight gleamed on it. It was a -ghastly dead white. But I do not suppose that it was for himself that -he was afraid. Jan was not a coward, or he would not have jumped after -me when I was drowning in the stormy sea. - -Once more he called to me. "Marius! For the sake of Magali--" - -And then there was a crashing and a rending of planks as I shot against -his boat, and a sudden upspringing of my own boat under me. And after -that, for a long while, a roaring of water about me, and my own body -tumbled and thrust hither and thither in it, and at last a blow which -seemed to dash me down into a vast black depth that was all buzzing -with little blazing stars. - - * * * * * - -But the others were upcast on the rocks dead. - - - - -A Sea Upcast - - -I - -When we East Anglians be set to do a thing, we be set firm. We come at -what we want by slow thinking, but when we know what we want we hold -fast by it--being born stubborn, and also being born staunch. It is -the same with our hating and with our loving: we fire slowly, but when -at last the fire is kindled it burns so strongly in the very hearts of -us--with a white glow, hotter than any flame--that there is no putting -it out again short of putting out our lives. - -Men and women alike, we are born that way; and we fishermen of the -Suffolk and Norfolk coast likewise are bred that way: seeing that -from the time we go afloat as youngsters until the time that we are -drowned, or are grown so old and rusty that there is no more strength -for sea-fighting left in us, our lives for the most part are spent in -fighting the North Sea. That is a fight that needs stubbornness to -carry it through to a finish. Also, it needs knowledge of the ocean's -tricks and turns--because the North Sea can do what we East Anglians -can't do: it can smile at you and lie. A man must have a deal of -training before he can tell by the feel of it in his own insides that -close over beyond a still sea and a sun-bright sky a storm is cooking -up that will kill him if it can. And even when he feels the coming of -it--if he be well to seaward, or if he be tempted by the fish being -plenty and by the bareness of his own pockets to hold on in the face of -it--he must have more in his head than any coast pilot has if he is to -win home to Yarmouth Harbour or to Lowestoft Roads. - -For God in his cruelty has set more traps to kill seafarers off this -easterly outjut of England, I do believe, than He has set anywhere else -in all the world: there being from Covehithe Ness northward to the -Winterton Overfalls nothing but a maze of deadly shoals--all cut up by -channels in which there is no sea-room--that fairly makes you queazy to -think about when you are coming shoreward in a northeast gale. And as -if that were not enough to make sure of man-food for the fishes, the -currents that swirl and play among these shoals are up to some fresh -wickedness with every hour of the tide-run and with every half shift of -wind. Whether you make in for Yarmouth by Hemesby Hole to the north, or -by the Hewett Channel to the south, or split the difference by running -through Caister Road, it is all one: twisting about the Overfalls and -the Middle Cross Sand and the South Scroby, there the currents are. -What they will be doing with you, or how they will be doing it, you -can't even make a good guess at; all that you can know for certain -being that they will be doing their worst by you at the half tide. - -At least, though, the Lowestoft men and the Yarmouth men have a good -harbour when once they fetch it; and by that much are better off than -we Southwold men, who have no harbour at all. With anything of a sea -running there is no making a landing under Southwold Cliff--though it -is safe enough when once your boat is beached and hauled up there; and -so, if the storm gets ahead of us, there is nothing left but to run for -Lowestoft: and a nice time we often have of it, with an on-shore gale -blowing, working up into the Covehithe Channel under the tail of the -Barnard Bank! As for beating up to seaward of the Barnard and running -in through Pakefield Gat, anybody can try for it who has a mind to--and -who has a boat that can eat the very heart out of the wind. Sometimes -you do fetch it. But what happens to you most times is best known to -the Newcome Shoal. When you have cleared the Barnard--if so be you do -clear it--the Newcome lies close under your lee for all the rest of -the run. What it has done for us fishermen you can see when the spring -tides bare it and show black scraps of old boats wrecked there, and -sometimes a gleam of sand-whitened bones. - -For a good many years we had another chance, though a poor one, and -that was to make a longish leg off shore and then run in before the -wind and cross the Barnard into Covehithe Channel through what we -called the Wreck Gat--a cut in the bank that the currents made striking -against a wrecked ship buried there. The Wreck Gat is gone now--closed -by the same storm that nearly closed my life for me--and you will not -find it marked nowadays on the charts. Its going was a good riddance. -At the best it was a desperate bad place to get through; and at its -worst it was about the same as a sea pitfall: and that nobody knows -better than I do, seeing that I was the last man to get through it -alive. But when you happened to be to windward of it, if it served at -all, it served better than running down a half mile farther and trying -to round the tail of the bank. - -Very many craft beside our own fisher-boats find their death-harbour -on our East Anglian sands. Our coast, as it has a right to be, is the -dread of every sailor man who sails the narrow seas. Great ships, -storm-swept on our sands, are sucked down into the depths of them, -or are hammered to pieces on the top of them, as light-heartedly as -though they were no more than cock-boats. And the supply of ships to be -wrecked there is unending--since the half of the trade of the world, -they say, sails past our shores. From every land they come: and many -and many a one of them comes but never goes. Down on them bangs the -northeast wind with a roar and a rattle--and presently our sands have -hold of them with a grip that is to keep them fast there till the last -day! Sometimes the dead men who were living sailors aboard those ships -come ashore to us, though they are more like to find graves in the -sands that murdered them or to be swept out to sea; sometimes, by a -twist of chance that you may call a miracle, the sea has a fancy for -casting one or two of them ashore alive. Dazed and half mad creatures -those live ones are, usually: their wits all jangled and shaken by the -great horror that has been upon them while they tossed among the waves. - -And so, as you may see, we men of the Suffolk and Norfolk coast need -the stiff backbone that we have as our birthright for the sea-fighting -that is our life-work; and it is not to be wondered at that our life of -sea-fighting makes us still more set and stubborn in our ways. - - -II - -My little Tess came to me, a sea upcast, after one of our great -northeast gales. I myself found her: lying where the waves had landed -her on the shingle, and where they had left her with the fall of the -tide. - -I was but a bit of a lad myself, then, going on to be eight years -old. Storms had no fright in them for me in those days. What I most -was thinking about when one was blowing--while my poor mother, if my -father was out in his boat, would be looking wild-eyed seaward, or in -the bed-room praying for him on her knees--was what I'd be picking up -on the shingle when the gale was over and the sea gone down. Later on, -when I came to know that at the gale's end I might be lying myself on -the shingle, along with the other wreckage, I got to looking at storms -in a different way. - -That blow that brought my Tess to me had no fears in it for my poor -mother, seeing that it came in the night time and my father safe at -home. The noise of my father getting up wakened me; and in a sleepy -way I watched him from my little bed, when he had the lamp lighted, -hurrying his clothes on that he might go down to where his boat was -hauled up on the shingle and heave her with the capstan still higher -above the on-run of the waves. And as I lay there, very drowsy, -watching my father drag his big boots on and hearing the roar of the -wind and feeling the shaking that it was giving to our house-walls, -there came suddenly the sharp loud bang of a gun. - -My father stopped as he heard it--with one leg in the air and his hands -gripping the boot-straps, I can see him now. "That's from close by!" -he said. "God help them--they must be ashore on the Barnard Bank!" Then -he jammed his other boot on, jumped into his sou'wester, and was gone -on a run. My mother ran to the door--I know now, having myself helped -to get men ashore from wrecked ships at my life's peril, what her fear -was--and called after him into the darkness: "Don't thou go to putting -thy life in danger, George May!" What she said did no good. The wind -swallowed her words before they got to him. For a minute or two she -stood in the doorway, all blown about; then, putting her weight on it, -she got the door shut and came back into the bed-room and knelt by the -bedside praying for him. I still was very drowsy. Presently I went off -to sleep again, thinking--God forgive me for it!--that if a ship had -stranded on the Barnard I'd find some pretty pickings when morning came -and the storm was over and I could get down to the shore. - -And that was my first thought when I wakened, and found the sun shining -and the wind blowing no more than a gentle breeze. My father was home -again, and safe and sound. There had been no chance for a rescue, -he said--the ship being deep down in the sands, and all her people -swept out of her, by the time that daylight came. And so I bolted my -breakfast, and the very minute that I had it inside of me I was off -down the cliff-path and along the beach northward to find what I could -find. All the other Southwold boys were hurrying that way too; but our -house being up at the north end of the village gave me the start of all -of them but John Heath, who lived close by us, and he came down the -cliff-path at my heels. - -The Barnard Bank lies off shore from Covehithe Ness, and under the Ness -our pickings would be most like to be. At the best they would be but -little things--buckets and baskets and brooms and odd oars, and such -like--the coast guard men seeing to it that we got no more; but things, -all the same, that any boy would jump for: and so away John and I ran -together, and we kept together until we were under the Ness--and could -see the broken stern-post of the wreck, all that was left to see of -her, sticking up from the Barnard going bare with the falling tide. -There I passed him--he giving a shout and stopping to pick up a basket -that I missed seeing because on my side weed covered it--and so was -leading him as we rounded the Ness by a dozen yards. And then it was I -who gave a shout--and made a dash for a big white bundle that was lying -in a nook of the shingle just above the lap of the waves. - -John saw the bundle almost as soon as I did, and raced me for it. But -I did see it first, and I touched it first, and so it fairly was mine. -A white sheet was the outside of it; and at one corner, under the -sheet, a bit of a blanket showed. I would have none of John's help as I -unwrapped it. He stood beside me, though, and said as I opened it that -even if I had touched it first we had seen it together--which wasn't -so--and that we must go share and share. I did not answer him, being -full of wonder what I was like to come to when I had the bundle undone. -In a good deal of a hurry I got the sheet loose, it was knotted at the -corners, and then the blanket, and then still another blanket that was -under the first one: and when that inner wrapping was opened there was -lying--a little live baby! It looked up into my face with its big black -eyes, and it blinked them for a minute--having been all shut up in the -dark and the sunlight bothering it--and then it smiled at me as if I'd -just waked it up not from the very edge of death in the sea but from a -comfortable nap in its cradle on land! - -John Heath burst out laughing. "You can have my share of it, George," -said he; "we've got babies enough of our own at home." And with that he -ran away and began to look again for brooms and buckets along the shore. - -But I loved my little Tess from that first sight of her, and I was -glad that John had said that I might have his share in her; though of -course, because I first saw her and first touched her, he had no real -share in her at all. So I wrapped her up again as well as I could in -her blankets--leaving the wet sheet lying there--and set off for home -along the shore, carrying her in my arms. Tired enough I got before I -had lugged my load that long way, and up the cliff, and so to our house -door. In the doorway my mother was standing, and I put the bundle in -her arms. "Lord save us!" said my mother. "What's the boy got here?" - -"Mother," said I, "it's a little beautiful live baby--and I found it, -and it's mine!" - - -III - -That was the way that my Tess came to me: and I know now how good my -father and my mother were in letting me keep her for my own--they with -only what my father could make by his fishing to live on, and the wolf -never very far away from the door. But the look of those black eyes of -hers and the smile in them won my mother's love to her, just as it had -won mine; and my mother told me, too, long years afterward, that her -heart was hungry for the girl baby that God had not given her--and she -said that Tess seemed to be her very own baby from the minute that she -took her close to her breast from my tired little arms. - -As to where Tess came from--from what port in all the wide world the -ship sailed that brought her to us--we had no way of knowing. Nothing -but Tess in her bundle came ashore from the wreck; and what was left of -the ship burrowed down into the sands so fast and so far that there was -to be seen of her only a broken bit of her stern-post at the storm's -ending. Even after the set of the currents against her sunken hull, on -the next spring tide, had cut through the Barnard Bank and so made the -Wreck Gat, no part of her but her broken stern-post ever showed. Tess -herself, though, told us what her own name was, and so gave us a notion -as to what land she belonged to; but we should have been none the -wiser for her telling it--she talking in words that were the same as -Greek to us--if the Vicar had not lent us a hand. - -My finding the baby made a stir in the whole village, and everybody -had to have a look at her. In the afternoon along came the Vicar -too--smiling through his gold spectacles, as he always did, and -swinging his black cane. By that time, having had all the milk she -could hold, and a good nap, and more milk again, Tess was as bright as -a new sixpence: just as though she had not passed that morning nearer -to death than ever she was like to pass again and live. She was lying -snug in my mother's arms before the fire, and in her own fashion was -talking away at a great rate--and my mother's heart quite breaking -because her pretty chatter was all in heathen words that nobody could -get at the meaning of. But the Vicar, being very learned, understood -her in a minute. "Why, it's Spanish," said he. "It's Spanish as sure as -you're born! She's calling you 'madrecita,' Mrs. May--which is the same -as 'motherkin,' you know. But I can't make even a guess at the rest of -it. Everything ends in 'ita'--real baby-talk." - -"Do kindly ask her, sir, what her blessed little name is," said my -mother. "It'll bring her a deal closer to us to know her name." - -"I'll try her in Latin," said the Vicar--"that's the best that I can -manage--and it'll be hit or miss if she understands." And then he bent -over the little tot--she being then a bit over two years old, my mother -thought--and asked her what her name was in Latin words. - -For a minute there was a puzzled look in the big black eyes of her and -her brow puckered. And then she smiled all over her pretty face and -answered, as clear as you please: "Tesita." That a baby no bigger than -that understood Latin always has seemed to me most like a miracle of -anything that ever I have known! - -My mother looked bothered and chap-fallen. "It's not a real name at -all," she said, and sighed over it. - -"It's a very good name indeed, Mrs. May," said the Vicar; "only she's -giving you her baby way of saying it. Her name is Theresa. 'Tesita' is -the same as our 'Tess' would be, you know." - -"Theresa! Tess!" cried my mother, brightening up all in a minute. "Why, -that was my own dear mother's name! Her having that name seems to make -her in real truth mine, sir!" And she hugged the baby close to the -heart of her, and all in the same breath cried over it and laughed over -it--thinking, I suppose, of her mother dead and buried, and thankful -for the daughter that she so longed for that had come to her upcast by -the sea. - -More than what her name was, as is not to be wondered at, Tess never -told us; and the only thing in the world that gave us any knowledge -of her--and that no more than that her people were like to be -gentlefolk--was a gold chain about her neck, under her little night -gown, with a locket fast to it on which were some letters in such a -jumble that even the Vicar could not make head nor tail of them, though -he tried hard. - - -IV - -Whatever part of the world Tess came from, it was plain enough by the -look of her--and more and more plain as she grew up into a tall and -lanky girl, and then into a tall slim woman--that Suffolk was a long -way off from the land where she was born. - -Our Suffolk folk, for the most part, are shortish and thickset and fair -and blue eyed. We men--being whipped about by the wind and weather, -and the sea-salt tanned into us--lose our fairness early and go a -bun-brown; but our women--having no salt spray in their faces, and only -their just allowance of sunshine--have their blue eyes matched with the -red and white cheeks that they were born with; and their hair, though -sometimes it goes darkish, usually is a bright chestnut or a bright -brown. Also, our women are steady-going and sensible; though I must say -that now and then they are a bit hard to get along with: being given -to doing their thinking slowly, and to being mighty fast set in their -own notions when once they have made their minds up--the same as we -men. As for Tess--with her black eyes and her black hair, and her face -all a cream white with not a touch of red in it--she was like none of -them; and she could think more out-of-the-way things and be more sorts -of a girl in five minutes than any Suffolk lass that ever I came across -could think or be in a whole year! - -Tess was unlike our girls in another matter: she had a mighty hot -spit-fire temper of her own. Our girls, the same as our men, are -easy-going and anger slowly; but when they do anger they are glowing -hot to their very finger-tips, and a long while it takes them to cool -off. But Tess would blaze up all in a minute--and as often as not with -no real reason for it--and be for a while such an out-and-out little -fury that she would send everything scudding before her; and then would -pull up suddenly in the thick of it, and seem to forget all about it, -and like enough laugh at the people around her looking scared! Somehow, -though, it was seldom that she let me have a turn of her tantrums; and -when she did they'd be over in no time, and she'd have her arms around -me and be begging me to kiss her and to tell her that I didn't mind. -I suppose that she was that way with me because for my part--having -from the very first so loved her that quarreling with her was clean -impossible--I used just to stand and stare at her in her passions; and -like enough be showing by the look in my eyes the puzzled sorrow that I -was feeling in my inside. As to answering her anger with my anger, it -never once crossed my mind. - -With John Heath things went differently. He would go ugly when she -flew out at him--and would keep his anger by him after hers long was -over and done with, and would show it by putting some hurt upon her -in a dirty way. A good many thrashings I gave John Heath, at one -time or another, for that sort of thing; and the greatest piece of -unreasonableness that Tess ever put on me, which is saying much for it, -was on that score: she being then ten years old, or thereabouts, and -John and I well turned of sixteen. - -Some trick that he played on her--I don't know what it was--set her -in a rage against him, and he made her worse by laughing at her, and -she ended by throwing sand in his eyes. Then his anger got up, and he -caught her--being twice the size of her--and boxed her ears. I came -along just then, and I can see the look of her now. She was not crying, -as any ordinary child would have been--John having meant to hurt her, -and hit hard. She was standing straight in front of him with her little -hands gripped into fists as if she meant to fight him, that cream white -face of hers gone a real dead white, a perfect blaze of passion in her -big black eyes. In another second or so she'd have been flying at him -if I'd given her the chance. But I didn't--I sailed right in and myself -gave him what he needed; and when I had finished with him I had so well -blackened the two eyes of him that he forgot about the sand. But after -it all was over, so far from being obliged to me, what did Tess do but -fall to crying because I'd hurt him, and to saying that he'd only given -her what she deserved! For a week and more she would not speak to me, -and all that time she was trotting about sorrowfully at John's heels. -It seemed as though all of a sudden she had got to loving him because -he had played the man and the master to her; and I'm sure that his love -for her had its beginning then too. - -John's folks and my folks, as I have said, lived up at the north end -of the village, a bit apart, and that made us three keep most together -while we were little; but Tess never had much to do with the other -children, even when she got big enough to be with them at school. They -did not get along with her, being puzzled by her whims and fancies and -set against her by her spit-fire ways. And she did not get along with -them because she was quick about everything and all of them were slow. -When she began to grow up, though, matters changed a good deal. The -boys--she being like nobody else in the village--picked her out to make -love to, and that set the girls by the ears. Tess liked the love-making -a deal more than I liked her to like it; and she didn't mind what the -girls said to her because her wits were nimbler than their wits and -she always could give them better than they could send. - -So things went while the years went till Tess was turned of seventeen, -and was shot up into a tall slim woman in all ways so beautiful as to -be, I do believe, the most beautiful woman that God ever made. And then -it was that Grace Gryce, damn her for it, found a whip that served to -lash her; and so cruel a whip that she was near to lashing the life out -of her with it at a single blow. - - -V - -According to our Suffolk notions, Grace Gryce was a beauty: being -strongly set up and full built and well rounded, with cheeks as red as -strawberries, and blue eyes that for any good looking man had a smile -in them, and over all a head of bright-brown hair. Had Tess been out -of the way she'd have had things all as she wanted them, not another -girl in the village for looks coming near her; and so it was only human -nature, I suppose, that she hated Tess for crossing her--making her -always go second, and a bad second, with the men. - -It was about John Heath, though, that the heart of the matter was. -All the village knew that Grace fancied him, and that he half fancied -her--and would have fancied her altogether had Tess been out of -the way. Making up his mind between them--John always was a thick -thinker--did not seem to come easy to him. The whims and the ways -of Tess--that made a dozen different sorts of girl of her in five -minutes--seemed to set him off from her a-most as much as they set him -on: being a sort of puzzle, I'm free to say, that other men beside John -couldn't well understand. With Grace it was different. She might blow -hot or she might blow cold with him; or she might show her temper--she -had a-plenty of it--and give him the rough side of her tongue: but what -she meant and what she wanted always was plain and clear. To be sure, -this is only my guess why he hung in the wind between them. Maybe he -set too little store on Tess's love because it came to him too easily; -maybe he thought that by seeming to love her lightly he best could hold -her fast. - -Hold her fast he did, and that is certain. In spite of all her -whimsies, he had her love; and it was his, as I have said, from the -time when he man-mastered her by boxing the little ears of her--she -being only ten years old. Always after that, even when she was at her -sauciest and her airiest, he had only to speak short and sharp to her -and she'd come to heel to him like a dog. Sometimes, seeing her taking -orders from him that way was close to setting me wild: I having my -whole heart fixed on her, and ready to give the very hands of me to -have from her the half of what she gave him. Not but what she loved me -too, in her own fashion, and dearly. She showed that by the way that -she used to come to me in all her little hurts and troubles; and the -sweetness and the comfortingness of her to me and to my mother always, -but most when my poor father was drowned, was beyond any words that I -have to put it in. But my pain was that the love which she had for me -was of the same sort that she had for my mother--and I was not wanting -from her love of that kind. And so it cut to the quick of me--I who -would have kissed her shoe-soles--to see her so ready always to be meek -and humble at a word from John. There were times, and a good many of -them--seeing her so dog-faithful to him, and he almost as careless of -her as if she had been no more than a dog to him--that I saw red as I -looked at him, and got burning hot in the insides of me, and was as -close to murdering him as I well could be and he still go on alive. - -Like enough Grace Gryce--being of the same stock that I was, and made -much as I was--had the same feeling for Tess that I had for John; and -Grace, being a woman, had nothing to stop her from murdering Tess in a -woman's way. She would have done it sooner had her wits been quicker. -Time and again they had had their word-fights together, and Tess always -getting the better of her because Grace's wits, like the rest of her, -were heavy and slow. - -It was down by the boats, under the Gun Hill, that they fought the -round out in which Grace drew blood at last. A lot of the girls were -together there and Tess, for a wonder, happened to be with them. They -all were saying to her what hard things they could think of; and she, -in her quick way, was hitting back at them and scoring off them all. -Poor sort of stuff it was that they were giving her: calling her "Miss -Fine-Airs" and "Miss Maypole," and scorning the black eyes and the pale -face of her, and girding at her the best they could because in no way -was she like themselves. - -"It's a pity I'm so many kinds of ugliness!" says Tess in her saucy -way, and making it worse by laughing. "It's a true pity that I'm not -pretty, like all the rest of you, and so am left lonely. If only I'd -some of your good looks, you see, I might have, as the rest of you -have, a lot of men at my heels." - -That was a shot that hit all of them, but it hit Grace the hardest -and she answered it. "It's better," said she, "to go your whole life -without a man at your heels than it is to spend your whole life -dog-tagging at the heels of a man." - -The girls laughed at that, knowing well what Grace was driving at. But -Tess was ready with her answer and whipped back with it: "Well, it's -better to tag at a man's heels and he pleased with it than it is to -want to tag there and he not letting you--liking a may-pole, maybe, -better than a butter-tub, and caring more, maybe, for grace by nature -than for Grace by name." - -That turned the joke--only it was no joke--on Grace again; and as the -girls had not much more liking for her than they had for Tess, seeing -that she spoiled what few man-chances Tess left them, they laughed at -her as hard as they could laugh. - -Grace's slow anger had been getting hotter and hotter in her. That shot -of Tess's, and the girls all laughing at her, brought it to a boil. - -"Who be'st thou, to open thy ugly mouth to me?" she jerked out, with -a squeak in her voice and her blue eyes blazing. "Who be'st thou, -anyway? Who knows the father or the mother of thee? Who knows what foul -folk in what foul land bore thee? Dog-tag thou may'st, but--mark my -words--naught will come of it: because thou'rt not fit for John Heath -or for any other honest man to have dealings with--thou rotten upcast -of the sea!" - -Tess was holding her head high and was scornful-looking when this -speech began; but the ending of it, so Mary Benacre told my mother, -seemed like a knife in her heart. Her face went a sort of a pasty -white, so Mary said; and she seemed to choke, somehow, and put her hand -up to her throat in a fluttering kind of way as if her throat hurt her. -And then she sort of staggered, and made a grab at the boat she was -standing by and leaned against it--looking, so Mary said, as if she was -like to die. - -"Mayhap now thou'lt keep quiet a bit," Grace said, with her hands on -her fat hips and her elbows out; and with that, and a flounce at her, -turned away. The other girls, all except Mary, went along with Grace; -but not talking, and most of them scared-looking: feeling, like -enough, as men would feel standing by at the end of a knife-fight, when -one man is down with a cut that has done for him and there is a smell -of blood in the air. - -Mary staid behind--she was a good sort, was Mary Benacre--and went to -Tess and tried to comfort her. Tess didn't answer her, but just looked -at her with a pitiful sort of stare out of her black eyes that Mary -said was like the look of some poor dumb thing that had no other way of -telling how bad its hurt was. And then, rousing herself up, Tess pushed -Mary away from her and started for home on a run. Mary did not follow -her, but later on she came and told my mother just what had happened -and gave her Grace Gryce's words. - -It was well that Mary came, that way, and told a clear story about it -all. What Tess told--when she came flying into the house and caught -my mother around the neck and put her poor head on my mother's breast -and went off into a passion of crying there--was such a muddle that my -mother knew only that Grace Gryce had said something to her that was -wickedly cruel. Tess cried and cried, as if she'd cry the very life out -of her; and kept sobbing out that she was a sea upcast, and a nobody's -daughter, and that the sea would have done better by her had it -drowned her, and that she hoped she'd die soon and be forgotten--until -she drove my mother almost wild. - -And so it went for a long while with her, my mother petting her and -crying over her, until at last--the feel, I suppose, of my mother's -warm love for her getting into her poor hurt heart and comforting -her--she began to quiet down. Then my mother got her to bed--she -was as weak as water--and made a pot of bone-set tea for her; and -pretty soon after she'd drunk a cup or two of it she dropped off to -sleep. She still was sleeping when Mary Benacre came and told the -whole story; and so stirred up my mother's anger--and she was a very -gentle-natured woman, my mother was--that it was all she could do, she -said afterwards, not to go straight off to Grace Gryce and give her a -beating with her own hands. - - -VI - -When Tess came to breakfast the next morning it gave me a real turn to -look at her. Somehow, at a single jump, she seemed to have changed from -a girl to a woman--and to an old woman at that. Suddenly she had got -to be all withered like, and the airs that she used to give herself and -all the pretty ways of her were gone. She just moped in a chair in a -corner--she who'd never been quiet for five minutes together, any more -than a bird--with a far-away look in her beautiful eyes, and the glint -of tears in them. Sorrow had got into the very bones of her. "Dost -think I really am come of such foul folk that I'm not fit for honest -company?" she asked my mother--and if she asked that question once that -morning she asked it a dozen times. - -In a way, of course, she had known what she was all her life long. "My -sea-baby" was my mother's pet name for her at the first; and by that -pet-name, when most tender with her, my mother called her till the -last. How she had come to us, how I had found her where the waves had -left her and had carried her home in my little tired arms, she had been -told over and over again. Sometimes she used to make up stories about -herself in her light-fancied way: telling us that she was a great lady -of Spain, and that some fine morning the great Spanish lord her father -would come to Southwold by some chance or other, and would know her by -the chain and the locket, and would take her home with him and marry -her to a duke--or to a prince, even--in her own land. We'd see that -she'd be pretending to herself while she told them to us that these -stories were true, and I think that she did half believe in them. But -it was not real believing that she had in them; it was the sort of -believing that you have in things in dreams. Her love was given to my -mother and to my father--and to me, too, though not in the way that I -wanted it--and we were the true kinsfolk of her heart. On our side, -we all so loved her, and made her feel so truly that she was our very -own, that the thought of her being a nobody's child never had a chance -to get into her mind. And her own fancies about herself--always that -her own dream people were great people in the dream land where they -lived--kept her from seeing the other chance of the matter: that they -as well might be mean people, who would put shame on her should ever -she come to know who they were. Into her head that cruel thought never -got until Grace Gryce put it there; and put there with it the crueller -thought that her being a nobody's child was what made John stand off -from her, he thinking her not fit to be his wife. - -Tess was fearing, maybe, that even if John had not had that feeling -about her he was like to have it after Grace had set him in the way of -it. And maybe she was thinking, too, that if she had been hurt for the -sake of him, and so deserved loving pity from him, it was Grace who for -the sake of him had done the hurting--and that it was Grace who had -won. Our girls are best pleased with the lover who fights to a finish -some other man in love with them and well thrashes him. Tess may have -fancied that John would take it that way; and so end by settling that -Grace, having the most fire and fight in her, was the most to his mind. -But what really came of it all with John, as far as I can make out, was -that his getting them fairly set the one against the other cleared his -thick wits up and brought him to a choice. - -And so, being in every way sorrowful, Tess was like a dead girl that -day; and my heart was just breaking for her. When dinner time came she -roused up a bit and helped my mother, as she always did--though my -mother wanted her to keep resting--and tried in a pitiful sort of way -to talk a little and to pretend that she was not in bitter pain; but -those pretty feet of hers, so light always, dragged after her in her -walking, and she was all wizened-looking, and there were black marks -under her beautiful sorrowing eyes. My mother helped to make talk with -her, though my mother was wiping her own tears away when she got the -chance; but as for me, I was tongue-tied by the hurt and the anger in -me and could not say a word. What I was thinking was, how glad I'd be -to wring Grace Gryce's neck for her if only she was a man! - -After dinner I went out to a bench in front of our house, but a bit -away from it, and sat there trying to comfort myself with a pipe--and -not finding much even in a pipe to comfort me--until the sun, all -yellow, began to drop down toward the Gun Hill into a bad looking -yellow sky. All the while I had the tail of my eye bearing on our door, -and at last I saw Tess come out of it. She took a quick look at the -back of me, sitting quiet there; and then, I not turning toward her, -off she walked along the edge of the cliff to the northward. At first -I didn't know what to do--thinking that if she wanted to be alone I -ought to leave her to her loneliness--and I sat on and smoked another -pipe before I could make up my mind. But the longer I sat there the -stronger my drawing was to go to her. What was hurting her most, as -I well enough knew, was the thought of having neither kith nor kin -for herself, along with the dread that even if she found her people -they might only be a shame to her--and that was a hurt that having a -husband would cure for her, seeing that she would get a new and a good -rating in the world when she got her husband's name. And so, at last, -I started after her to tell her all that was in the heart of me; and -thinking more, and this is the truth, of what I could do to comfort her -by taking the sting out of Grace Gryce's words than of how in that same -way I could win my own happiness. - -I walked on so far--across the dip in the land where the old river was, -and up on the cliffs again--that I began to think she had turned about -inland and so had gone that way home. But at last I came up with her, -on the very top of Covehithe Ness. - -She was sitting at the cliff-edge, bent forward a little with her -elbows on her knees and her face in her hands; and as I came close to -her I saw that she was crying in that quiet sort of way that people cry -in when they have touched despair. I walked so softly on the grass that -she did not hear my footsteps; but she was not put out when she looked -up and saw me standing over her--by which I think, and am the happier -for thinking it, that she had not gone there of set purpose to meet -with John. - -"Sit thee down here, George. I'm glad thou'rt come," she said, and she -reached me her hand. - -When I was on the grass beside her--she still keeping her hand in mine, -as if the touch of something that loved her was a comfort to her--she -had nothing to say for a bit, but just leaned her head against my -shoulder and cried softly there. - -The tide was out and a long stretch of the Barnard Bank lay bared below -us, with here and there the black bones of some dead ship lying buried -in them sticking up from the sands. Slicing deep in the bank was the -Wreck Gat, with the last of the ebb running out through it from the -Covehithe Channel and the undercut sides of it falling down into the -water and melting away. At the edge of it was the sunken ship that -had made it: the ship that had brought Tess to us from her birth-land -beyond the seas. As I have said, no more of the wreck showed than her -broken stern-post: a bit of black timber, all jagged with twisted iron -bolts and weed-grown and barnacled, upstanding at one side of the -channel from the water and not high out of it even at low tide. When -the tide was in, and any sort of a sea was running, you stood a good -chance of finding just where it was by having your boat stove on it: -for then it did not show at all, except now and then in the hollow of -the waves. - -Tess was looking down on it, her head still resting on my shoulder, and -after a while she said: "If only we could dig that ship up, George, -we might find what would tell that I'm not come of foul folk, after -all"--and then she began to cry again in the same silent sort of way. -I couldn't get an answer for her--what she said hurt me so, and she -crying on my shoulder, and I feeling the beating of her heart. - -"It was good of thee, George," she went on again, presently, "to save -the baby life of me; but it's a true truth thou'dst have done me more -of a kindness hadst thou just thrown me back into the sea. I'd be glad -to be there now, George. Down there under the water it would make no -difference what sort of folk I come of. And I'd be resting there as I -can't rest here--for down there my pain would be gone." - -My throat was so choked up that I had hard work to get my words out of -it, and when they did come they sounded queer. "Tess! Tess!" I said. -"Thou'lt kill me dead talking that way. As if the like of thee could -come of foul folk! A lord duke would be the least to be fit father to -thee--and proud of thee he well might be! But what does it matter, -Tess, what thy folk were who owned thee at the beginning? They gave -thee to the sea's keeping--and the sea gave thee to me. By right of -finding, thou'rt mine. It was I who found thee, down on the shingle -there, and from the first minute that ever I laid eyes on thee I loved -thee--and the only change in me has been that always I've loved thee -more and more. Whether thy people were foul folk or fair folk is all -one to me. It's thyself that I'm loving--and with every bit of the love -that is in my heart. Let me make thee the wife of me, Tess--and then -thou'lt have no need to fret about who thy forbears were for thou'lt -have no more to do with them, being made a part of me and mine." - -I talked at such a rate, when I did get set a-going, that my own words -ran away with me; and I got the feeling that they ran away with Tess -too. But when I had ended, and she lifted up her head from my shoulder -and looked straight into the eyes of me, I knew by what her eyes had -in them--before ever she said a word back to me--that what I wanted -most in the whole world for myself I could not have. - -It seemed to me an hour before she spoke, she all the time looking -straight into my eyes and her own eyes full of tears. At last she did -speak. "George," said she, "if I could be wife to thee, as thou'dst -have me be, I'd go down on my knees and thank God! But it can't be, -George. It can't be! I've set my heart." - -There was no doubting what she said. In the sound of her voice there -was something that seemed as much as her words to settle the matter for -good and all. Whenever I am at a funeral and hear the reading of the -burial service it brings back to me the sound of her voice that day. -Only there is a promise of hope in the burial service--and that there -was not for me in Tess's words. - -"It's John that's between us?" I asked. - -"Yes," she said, speaking slow, "it's John." She was quiet for a minute -and then went on again, still speaking slow: "I don't understand it -myself, George. Thou'rt a better-hearted man than he is, and I truly -think I love him less than I do thee. But--but I love him in another -way." - -"Damn him!" said I. - -That got out before I could stop it, but when it had got out I wasn't -sorry. It told what I felt then--and it tells what I feel now. John's -taking her from me was stealing, and nothing less. We were together -when I found her, he and I; but I first saw her and I first touched -her--and he gave me his share in her, though he had no real share in -her, when he knew what my finding was. And so his taking her from me -was stealing: and that is God's truth! - -Tess said nothing back to me. She only looked at me sorrowful for a -minute, and then looked down again at the bit of wreck on the sands. By -the sigh she gave I knew pretty well what was in her mind. - -I'd had my answer, and that was the end of it. "I'll be going now, -Tess," I said; and I got up and she got up with me. I was not feeling -steady on my legs, and like enough I had a queer look on me. As for -Tess, she was near as white as a dead woman, though some of her -whiteness may have come from the yellow sunshine on her out of the -western sky. Up there on top of the Ness we still had the sun with us, -though he was almost gone among the foul weather yellow clouds. - -"Thou'lt try to forgive me, George," she said, speaking low, and her -mouth sort of twitching. - -"I love thee, Tess," I said; "and where there's love there can be no -talk of forgiveness. But John has the hate of me, and I tell thee -fairly I'll hurt him if I can!" - -With that I left her--there on Covehithe Ness, over the very spot where -the sea brought her to me--and went walking back along the cliff-edge: -and not seeing anything clearly because I was thinking about John, and -what I'd like to do to him, and there was a sort of red blur before my -eyes. - -After a while I turned and looked back. My eyes had cleared a bit, -but what I saw made them red again. Tess was not alone on the Ness. -John was with her. The two stood out strong in the last of the -yellow sunshine against a cloud-bank on the far edge of the sky. I -suppose that Tess being hurt that way for him brought John to his -bearings--making him love her the more for sorrow's sake, and for -anger's sake making him ready to throw Grace Gryce over. Like enough -he had been watching for his chance to get to her, waiting till I was -gone. Anyway, there he was--and I knew what he was saying to her as -well as if I'd heard the words. It is no wonder that the blood got -into my eyes again as I started back along the path. But I did not go -far. Somehow I managed to pull myself together and turn again. What I -had to settle with John Heath could be settled best when he and I were -alone. - - -VII - -When Tess came home to supper that night she was all changed again: her -looks gay once more, and her step light, and a sort of flutter about -her lips--as if she was wanting to smile and was trying not to--and a -soft look in her eyes that I never had seen there, but knew the meaning -of and found the worst of all. - -I couldn't eat my supper; and got up presently and went out leaving -it--my mother looking after me wondering--and walked up and down on the -cliff-edge in the darkness with my heart all in a blaze of hate for -John. For a good while I had been looking for what I knew was in the -way of coming to me; but it was different, and worse, and hurt more -than I had counted on, when at last it came. Out there in the darkness -I staid until the night was well on--not wanting for a while to hear -the sound of Tess's voice nor to lay eyes on her. Not until I was -sure, by the lights being out in the house, that she'd gone to bed, did -I go in again. My mother was waiting waking for me. She came to me in -the dark and put her arms around me and kissed me; by which I knew that -Tess had been telling her--and knew, too, she always having looked to -the wedding of us, that her heart was sore along with mine. But I could -not bear even her soft touch on the hurt that I had. I just kissed her -back again and broke away from her and went to bed. And in the very -early morning, not having slept much, I slipped out of the house before -either she or Tess was stirring and down to my boat and so away to sea. - -What I was after was to get some quiet time to myself that would steady -me before I had things out with John. I was not clear in my mind how -I meant to settle with him. I did know, though, that I meant to have -some sort of a fair fight with him that would end in my killing him or -in him killing me--and I knew that to tackle him with my head all in a -buzz would be to throw too many chances his way. And so I got away in -my boat, at the day-dawn, to the sea's quietness: where I could clear -my head of the buzzing that was in it and put some sort of shape to my -plans. - -Had I been in my sober senses that morning I never should have gone -away seaward at all. Backing up the promise of the yellow sunset of -the night before, pink clouds were showing in the eastern sky as I -started; and as I sailed on in loneliness--standing straight out from -the land on a soft leading wind from the south-west westerly--the pink -turned to a pale red and then to a deep red, and at last the sun came -up out of the water a great ball of fire. The look of the sea, too, -all in an oily bubble, and the set of the ground-swell, told me plain -enough--even without the sunrise fairly shouting it in the ears of -me--that a change of wind was coming before mid-day, and that pretty -soon after the wind shifted it would be blowing a gale. - -I will say this, though: If I'd missed seeing the red sunrise--and -all the more if I'd been full of happiness and my wits gone a -wool-gathering--I might have thought from the look and the feel of the -water, and from the set of the high clouds, that the wind would not -blow to hurt anything for a good twelve hours. That much I'll say by -way of excuse for John. Like enough he slept late that morning--through -lying awake the night before thinking what he'd be likely to -think--and so missed seeing the sun's warning. When he did get away in -his boat it was well past eight o'clock; and there was no man on the -beach when he started, so they told me, to counsel him. And, all being -said, even a good sailor--and that John was--starting off as he was to -buy a wedding-ring might not look as sharp as he ought to look at the -sea and at the sky. - -As to my own sailing seaward--I seeing the storm-signals and knowing -the meaning of them--I have no more to say than that I was hot for -a fight with anything that morning, and didn't care much what I had -it with or how it came. Anybody who knows how to sail a boat, and to -sail one well, knows what joy there is in getting the better of foul -winds and rough seas for the mere fun of the thing; but there is still -more joy in a tussle of that sort when you are in a towering rage. -Then you are ready to push the fight farther by taking more and bigger -death-chances: since a man in bitter anger--at least in such bitter -anger as I was in then--does not care much whether he pulls through -safely or gets drowned. And so I went on my course seaward, on that -soft wind blowing more and more lazily, until the coast line was lost -in the water behind me: knowing well enough, and glad to have it that -way, that the wind would lull and lull until it failed me, and that -then I would get a blow out of the northeast that would give me all the -fight I wanted, and perhaps a bit to spare! - -But because I meant my fight to be a good one, and meant to win it, I -got myself ready for it. When the wind did fail--the sun was put out -by that time, and from high up in the northeast the scud was flying -over me--I took in and snugged away everything but my mainsail, and -put a double reef in that with the reef-points knotted to hold. Then -I waited, drifting south a little--the flood having made half an hour -before, and the set of the ebb taking me that way. - -I did not have to wait long. Out of the mist, banked thick to the -north-eastward, came the moaning that a strong wind makes when it's -rushing down on you; then from under the mist swept out a dark riffle -that broke the oily bubble of the water and put life into it; and -then the wind got to me with a bang. There was more of it than I had -counted on having at the first, showing that the gale behind it was a -strong one and coming down fast; but I had the nose of my boat pointed -up to meet it, and with no more than a bit of a rattle I got away -close-hauled. There was no going back to Southwold, of course. What I -was heading for was the Pakefield Gat into the Stanford Channel, and so -to the harbour at Lowestoft; and I pretty well knew from the first that -no matter how close I bit into the wind--and my boat was a weatherly -one--I had my work cut out for me if I meant to keep from going to -leeward of the Pakefield Gat in the gale that was coming on. - -Go to leeward I did, and badly. When I raised the coast again, and a -lift of the mist gave me my bearings, I saw that Kessingland tower was -my landfall. As to working up from there to the Pakefield Gat--the -edge of the gale by that time being fairly on me--I knew that it was -clean impossible. I still had two chances left--one being to cross the -Barnard by the Wreck Gat, and the other to round into Covehithe Channel -across the tail of the bank. To the first of these the wind would help -me; but I knew that even with the wind's help it would be ticklish -work trying to squeeze through that narrow place at the half ebb--when -the strong outset of the current would be meeting the inpour of the -storm-driven sea. It would be better, so I settled after a minute's -thinking, to pass that chance and take the other--which would be a -fairly sure one, though a close one too. And so I wore around--with a -bad wallow in the trough of the sea that set everything to shaking for -a minute--and got on my new course pretty well on the wind. - -Just as I was making ready for wearing, and so had my hands full, I -glimpsed the sail of a boat in the mist up to windward; and when I was -come about she was abeam to leeward, showing her high weather side to -me, not twenty yards away. Then I saw that it was John Heath's boat, -and that John was standing up alone in her at the helm. Why the fool -had not staid safe in Lowestoft harbour, God only knows. But it's only -fair to him, again, to say that he must have got away from Lowestoft -a good while before the wind shifted; and like enough he would have -worked down to Southwold, and got his boat safe beached there before -trouble came, if the calm had not caught him sooner than it did me--he -being all the time close under the land. - - -VIII - -Some of my rage had gone out of me in my fight to windward in the -gale's teeth; but when I saw John close by me there it all came back -to me. For half a minute the thought was in my head to run him down -and sink him--and I had the wind of him and could have done it. Even -in my rage, though, I could not play a coward trick like that on him; -and before I could make any other plan up he set me in the way of one -himself. - -"I'm making for the Wreck Gat," he sung out. "Give me a lead in, -George--'tis better known to thee than to me." - -Had I stopped to think about it, his asking me to lead him in would -have been a puzzle to me, he being just as good a sailor as I was -and just as well knowing every twist of the sea and the sands. But I -didn't stop to think about the queerness of what he wanted--why he was -for making things double safe by my leading him is clear enough to me -now--because my wits were at work at something else. - -While the words were coming out of his mouth--it all was in my head -like a flash--I saw my way to settling with him, and to settling fair. -He was crazy to want to try for it through the Wreck Gat on the half -tide, with the run of the ebb meeting the onset of the breakers and a -whole gale blowing. But his being crazy that way was his look out, -not mine. I'd give him the lead in that he wanted--asking him to take -nothing that I didn't take first myself, and giving him a better chance -than I had because I'd be setting the course for him and he'd have -only to follow on. That either of us would pull through would be as -it might be. As to my own chance, such as it was, I was ready for it: -knowing that I would be no worse off dead with him than I was living -with him--and a long sight better off if I put him in the way of the -drowning that would finish him, and yet myself won through alive. - -That was what got into my head like a flash while he was hailing me, -and mighty pleased I was with it. "Follow on," I sung out. "I'll give -thee a lead." And to myself I was saying: "Yes, a lead to hell!" - -"All right," he sung out back to me--and let his boat fall off a bit -that I might draw ahead of him. As he dropped astern, and the uptilt of -his weather rail no longer hid the inside of his boat from me, I saw -that there was a biggish bunch of something covered with a tarpaulin' -in the stern sheets close by his feet. But I gave no thought to it: all -my thought being fixed on what was ahead of me and him in the next -half hour. I was glad that we had to wait a little. Every minute of -waiting meant more wind, and so a bigger fight in the Wreck Gat between -the out-running current and the in-running sea. I had a feeling in my -bones that I would pull through and that he wouldn't, and I was keen -to see the smash of him as his boat took the sands. After that smash -came, the rest of his life could be counted in minutes and seconds--as -he floundered and drowned in that wild tumble of sand-thickened waves. -So I'd have done with him and be quit of him; and would have a good -show--if I didn't drown along with him--for winning Tess for my own. If -I did drown with him, or if--not being drowned--Tess would have none of -me, there still would be this much to the good: I'd have served him out -for crossing me in my deep heart-wish, and I'd have made certain that -he and she never could come together in this world alive. - -All that I was thinking as I stood on ahead of him, bucketing through -the waves that every minute were heavier with the churned up sand. And -I also was thinking, and I remember laughing as the thought came to me, -that there was a sort of rightness in the way things were working out -with us--seeing that the ship that had brought me my Tess, and the sea -that had given her to me, together were making the death-trap for the -man who had stolen away from me her love. - -The wind was well up to a gale as we drove on together, me leading him -by a half dozen boats' lengths, and from all along to leeward of us -came to us through the mist a sort of a groaning roar as the breakers -went banging and grinding on the Barnard Bank. Nothing but having the -wind and the sea both with us, when we stood in for the gat, saved us -from foundering; and yet that same also put us in peril of it, because -we had a wide open chance of being pooped by the great following waves -which came hanging over and dragging at our sterns. - -The mist thinned as we got closer in shoreward, showing me the -sand-heavy surf waiting for its chance to scour the life out of us; -but also showing me Covehithe Ness, and Covehithe church tower off to -the left of it, and so giving me the points that I wanted to steer -by. As for the look of the Wreck Gat, when we opened it, the waves -blustered over it so big, and were all in such a whirl and a fury with -the current meeting them, that only a crazy man--as I have said--ever -would have tried for it. Just about crazy I then was, and the look -of it suited me. In that sea the narrow channel was so lashed by the -breakers running off from the sands to windward of it that there was -no sign of a cleft anywhere. No matter how we steered, getting through -it would be just hit or miss with us--and with all my heart and soul I -hoped that it would be hit for me and miss for John. - -To make in, I had to bear up a little; and getting the wind by even -that little abeam gave my boat a send to leeward that was near to doing -for me. I was glad of it, though; because I knew that John would get -that same send in the wake of me--and with more chance of its finishing -him, his boat being a deal less weatherly than mine. And so--as I -grazed the sands, and after the graze went on safe again--my heart was -light with the thought that I'd got the better of him at last. - -[Illustration: "THEN I COULD USE MY EYES TO LOOK BEHIND ME"] - -There was no looking back, though, to see what had gone with him. All -my eyes were needed for my steering. Everywhere about me the sand-heavy -water was hugely rising in a great roar and tumble; and as for the -sands under it, and there the worst danger was, it was just good luck -or bad luck about striking them--and that was all that you could say. -Twice I felt a jar under me as the boat went deep in the sea-trough; -but I did not strike hard enough to hurt me, and I lifted again so -quick that I did not broach-to. And then, when I thought that I was -fairly through, and had safe water right ahead of me, there came a -bang on the boat's side--as the sea-trough took me down again--that -near stove me: and right at the side of me, so close that I could have -touched it as I lay for a second there in the deep wave-hollow, was the -stern-post of Tess's sand-bedded ship rising black out of the scum and -foam. One foot farther to leeward and the jagged iron of it would have -had me past praying for. But it did no harm to me--and as the water -covered it again I shot on beyond it into what seemed to me, after the -sea I'd hammered through, almost a mill-pond on the lee side of the -bank. - -Then I could use my eyes to look behind me: and what I saw will stay -fixed in them till the copper pennies cover them and I see with them no -more. - -In spite of his send to leeward at the start, John had come through -after me without taking the ground; but he had gone farther to leeward -than I had, and so was set--when smooth water lay close ahead of -him--fairly in death's way. As I looked back I saw only the bow of -his boat, with the scrap of sail above it, riding on the top of an -oncoming wave. Then the boat tilted forward, and came tearing down the -wave-front at a slant toward me, and I saw the whole length of her: -and what burned my eyes out was seeing Tess there, standing brave and -steady, the two hands of her gripping fast the mast. - -It was not much more than a second that I had to look at her. With a -sharp sound of wood splintering, that I heard above the noise that -the sea was making, the boat struck fair and full on that iron set -timber--and then the wave that had sent her there was playing with the -scattered bits of her, and the sand-heavy breakers were tumbling about -the bodies of the two that she had borne. - - * * * * * - -If the sea meant to give me back my dead Tess again, I knew where -I should find her--and there I did find her. On the shingle under -Covehithe Ness she was lying: come to me there at the last, as she came -to me there at the first, a sea upcast. That last time she was all -mine. There was no John left living to steal her away from me. And if -she was not mine as I wanted her, at least she never was his at all. In -that far I had my will and way over him, and for that much I am glad. - -And so, she being all my own, home along the beach for the second time -I carried her. It was a wonder to me, as she lay in my arms, how light -she was--and she so tall! - - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Great Waters, by Thomas A. 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