tteras and
Race Point light. It was night all at once, although it had been day
only a few minutes before, and Azuba, who, it seemed, was cook aboard
the Bluebird, was washing breakfast dishes in the skipper's stateroom.
She was making a good deal of noise about it, jingling pans and thumping
the foot of the berth with a stick of stove wood. The captain was about
to remonstrate with her when Serena suddenly appeared--her presence on
the schooner was a complete surprise--to ask him if he had not heard the
bell, and why didn't he come into the house, because dinner was ready.
Then Azuba stopped pounding the foot of the berth and began to thump him
instead.

"Don't you hear the bell?" repeated Serena. "Wake up! Daniel! Daniel!"

Daniel stirred and opened his eyes. The Bluebird had vanished, so had
Azuba, but the thumps and jingles were real enough.

"Hey?" he mumbled, drowsily. "Stop poundin' me, won't you?"

"Pounding you! I've been pounding and shaking you for goodness knows how
long. I began to think you were dead. Wake up! Don't you hear the bell?"

Daniel, still but two-thirds awake, rolled over, raised himself on his
elbow and grunted, "Bell! What bell?"

"The door bell. Someone's at the door. Don't you hear them?"

Captain Dan slid out of bed. His bare feet struck the cold floor beneath
the open window and he was wide awake at last. The room was pitch dark,
so morning had not come, and yet someone WAS at the door, the front
door. The bell was ringing steadily and the ringer was varying the
performance by banging the door with his feet. The captain fumbled for
the button, found and pressed it, and the electric light blazed.

"For mercy sakes!" he grumbled, glancing at his watch hanging beside the
head of the bed, "it's quarter past one. Who in time is turnin' us out
this time of night?"

Serena, nervous and frightened--she, too, had been aroused from a sound
sleep--answered sharply.

"I don't know," she snapped. "It's something important though, or they
wouldn't do it. Hurry up and find out, can't you? I never saw such a
man!"

Her husband hastened to the closet, found his slippers and bathrobe--the
latter was a recent addition to his wardrobe, bought because his
wife had learned that B. Phelps Black possessed no less than three
bathrobes--and shuffled out into the hall. The bell had awakened other
members of the household. A light shone under the door of John Doane's
room, and from Gertrude's apartment