n that she
had noticed now and then was once more in his face.

"I don't think you like the fog any more than I do," she said.

"No," responded Wyllard, with a quiet forcefulness that startled her. "I
hate it."

"Why?"

"It recalls something that still gives me a very bad few minutes every
once in a while. It has been worrying me again to-night."

"I wonder," said Agatha simply, "if you would care to tell me?"

The man looked down on her. "I haven't told it often, but you shall
hear," he replied. "It's a tale of a black failure." He stretched out a
hand and pointed to the ranks of tumbling seas. "It was very much this
kind of night, and we were lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians'
beaches, when I asked for volunteers. I got them--two boats' crews of
the finest seamen that ever handled oar or sealing rifle."

"But what did you want them for?"

"A boat from another schooner had been cast ashore. It was blowing hard,
as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into the Behring Sea.
They'd been shooting seals. We meant to bring the men off if we could
manage it."

"Wouldn't one boat have been enough?"

"No," answered Wyllard dryly, "we had three, and I think that was one
cause of the trouble. There was one from the other schooner. You see,
those seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could shoot
them only off shore. I'm not sure that the men in the wrecked boat had
been fishing outside the limit."

Agatha did not press for further particulars, and he went on.

"We managed to make a landing, though one boat went up bottom uppermost.
I fancy they must have broken or lost an oar then. We got the wrecked
men, but we had trouble while we were getting the boats off again. The
surf was running in savagely, and the fog shut down as solid as a wall.
Any way, we pulled off, and went out with a foot of water in one boat.
One of the rescued men took my oar when I let it go."

"Why did you let it go?"

Wyllard laughed in a grim fashion.

"My head was laid open with a sealing club," he said. "Some of the other
men had their scratches, but they managed to row. For one thing, they
knew they had to. They had reasons for not wanting to fall into the
Russians' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice, as I
tried to bale, there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a
vanishing boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping
into the boat, and the spray was flying ev