an' they'll be at Half-Tide Beach afore the sun rises----"

"D'y' mean, Bessie, d'y' mean----"

"I mean all that's bad they'll do to you, Sammie. I heard 'em my own
self. 'What right has this American to come here and take the herrin'
from our very doors? What right?' That's the way the trader talked to
'em in the back room afore you came in. 'In the old days I've seen men
beat to death on the beach for less,' I heard 'em through the bulkhead.
'Ay, an' their vessels run up on the rocks somewhere,' he goes on. An'
it's you, Sammie, they has in mind."

"And the crew to Caplin Cove, an' only me and Tim to stand by the
vessel. The vessel and her full hold. But who'll get the word to them?
If only there was some one, some one we could trust, Bess!"

"There is one that could do that, too, boy."

"Who? What! Yourself, Bess? Could you make where they are--Caplin
Cove--alone, and by night--and tell 'em what's in the wind, so they'll
be aboard in time, while I go and hurry after Tim Lacy to the vessel at
Half-Tide Harbor? Could a woman like a man well enough to do that?"

"Well, women likes men sometimes, Sammie."

"God bless you, Bess, of course. And sometimes, too, a man likes--But,
Bess!" She lay swaying in the hollow of his arm. "Bessie!"--and oh, the
nearness of him! "I don't want to fool you, girl--we _was_ carryin' sail
the night your brother Simon was lost. A livin' gale, and she buttin'
into it with a whole mains'l--you won't hold that agin' me?"

"How could I, Sammie? A man that's a man at all is bound to carry sail
at times. And fishermen, sail-carryin' or no sail-carryin', they comes
and goes."

"Ay, girl, and sometimes goes quicker than they comes. Oh, Bess, the
fine men I've been shipmates with! And now 'twould take a chart of all
the banks 'tween Hatteras and Greenland to find out where the bones of
the half of 'em lie."

"But do go now, Sammie." She snuggled closer to him. "Have a care now,
for I'm lovin' you now, Sammie."

"Ay, you are. And I'm lovin' you, Bess. But your father, Bess; he'll put
you out."

"Well, if he do----"

"If he do, Bess, you know who'll be waitin' for you."

"Ay, I do. An' I'll come to you, too, no fear, boy. But no matter about
John Lowe now, boy, so you won't forget me, Sammie."

"Never a forget, Bessie."

"Then hold me again, Sammie, afore we part. And don't forget--never a
man afore did I like like I likes you, Sammie."

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