cling to the
crags with stiffening hands, and the sleet ices them, and the spray, and
the sea lashes and beats them with great strokes and sucks them down
to death: and right in the midst of it all there burst a gun,--one,
another, and no more. "Oh, Faith! Faith!" I cried again, and I ran and
hid my head in the bed.

How long did I stay so? An hour, or maybe two. Dan was still dead with
sleep, but mother had no more closed an eye than I. There was no rain
now, the wind had fallen, the dark had lifted; I looked out once more,
and could just see dimly the great waters swinging in the river from
bank to bank. I drew the bucket fresh, and bound the cloths cold on
Dan's head again. I hadn't a thought in my head, and I fell to counting
the meshes in the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was
the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore. It grew clearer,--it got
to being a universal gray; there'd been no sunrise, but it was day.
Dan stirred,--he turned over heavily; then he opened his eyes wide and
looked about him.

"I've had such a fright!" he said. "Georgie! is that you?"

With that it swept over him afresh, and he fell back. In a moment or two
he tried to rise, but he was weak as a child. He contrived to keep on
his elbow a moment, though, and to give a look out of the window.

"It came on to blow, didn't it?" he asked; but there he sank down again.

"I can't stay so!" he murmured soon. "I can't stay so! Here,--I must
tell you. Georgie, get out the spy-glass, and go up on the roof and
look over. I've had a dream, I tell you! I've had a dream. Not that
either,--but it's just stamped on me! It was like a storm,--and I
dreamed that that schooner--the Flyaway--had parted. And the half of
her's crashed down just as she broke, and Faith and that man are high
up on the bows in the middle of the South Breaker! Make haste, Georgie!
Christ! make haste!"

I flew to the drawers and opened them, and began to put the spy-glass
together. Suddenly he cried out again,--

"Oh, here's where the fault was! What right had I ever to marry the
child, not loving her? I bound her! I crushed her! I stifled her! If she
lives, it is my sin; if she dies, I murder her!"

He hid his face, as he spoke, so that his voice came thick, and great
choking groans rent their way up from his heart.

All at once, as I looked up, there stood mother, in her long white gown,
beside the bed, and bending over and taking Dan's hot head in her tw