ye bes safe as Mother Nolan herself. A divil o' a woman that, entirely.
Saints in glory, me whiskers still aches desperate! Here bes a grand rug
for ye to lay on, an' blankets to cover yerself wid. The skipper sent
'em. Kill a man he will, in fair fight; but it bain't in his nature to
let any man go cold nor hungry in Chance Along."

He spread the caribou skin and one of the blankets on the floor and
rolled John Darling on to them. Then he threw two more blankets over him
and tucked them in. Next, he produced a flask from his pocket and
uncocked it.

"Skipper's orders," he said, and held the flask to the helpless one's
lips.

"Now ye bes as snug as any marchant, what wid yer grand bed an' yer drop
o' fine liquor in yer belly," he remarked. He turned at the door and
said, "Some one will be bringin' ye grub in the mornin'. Good night to
ye."

From that until morning, the prisoner on the floor, bound at wrist and
ankle, rested more peacefully than Black Dennis Nolan in his father's
bed; for the sailor was only sore in his muscles and bones, but the
skipper ached in heart and soul. The skipper tossed through the black
hours, reasoning against reason, hoping against hopelessness. The girl
hated him and despised him! Twist and turn as he might, he could not
escape from this conviction. Now he even doubted the power of the
diamonds and rubies to win her, having seen that in her eyes which had
brought all his dreams crumbling to choking dust. Pain had laid the
devil of fury in him and aroused the imp of stubbornness. He would wait
and watch. He was safe to keep them both in the harbor until the arrival
of Father McQueen, in June; and perhaps, by that time, he would see some
way of winning the girl. Should the necklace of diamonds and rubies fail
to impress the girl, then he might bribe John Darling with it to leave
the harbor. You see, the workings of the skipper's mind were as
primitive as his methods of coping with mutineers.

The skipper left his bed and the house at the first gray of dawn,
determined to search the coast high and low for a solution of the
mystery of the stranger's arrival. He went down between the silent
cabins, all roofed with new snow, and the empty snow-trimmed stages, and
looked out upon the little harbor. What was that, just at the edge of
the shadow of the rock to the right of the narrow passage?--a boat, lump
of wreckage or a shadow? Stare as he would, he could not determine the
nature of the t