for whom my heart was beginning to throb."

"It's a pity," said the blacksmith, "that you hadn't jumped into the
water while the fit was on you, and done the tearing."

"A man often feels strong enough to do a thing," said the marine, "and
yet doesn't care to try to do it, and that was my case at that time;
but I vowed to myself that if the time came when there was any saving
to be done, I'd attend to Miss Minturn, even if I had to neglect the
rest of the family.

"She didn't make any answer, but she gave me her hand; and she couldn't
have done anything I liked better than that. I held it as long as I
could, which wasn't very long, and then she went down to her father."

"Glad of it," said the blacksmith.

"When I had had my supper, and had smoked my pipe, and everything was
still, and I knew I shouldn't see anybody any more that night, I began
to have the quakes and the shakes. If even I had had the maid to talk
to, it would have been a comfort; but in the way of faithfully
attending to her employers that woman was a trump. She cooked for them,
and did for them, and stuck by them straight along, so she hadn't any
time for chats with me.

"Being alone, I couldn't help all the time thinking about the
Water-devil, and although it seems a foolish thing now that I look back
on it, I set to work to calculate how long it would take him to count
his feet. I made it about the same time as you did, sir," nodding to
the schoolmaster, "only I considered that if he counted twelve hours,
and slept and rested twelve hours, that would make it seven days, which
would give me a good long time with Miss Minturn, and that would be the
greatest of joys to me, no matter what happened afterward.

"But then nobody could be certain that the monster at the bottom of
the bay needed rest or sleep. He might be able to count without
stopping, and how did I know that he couldn't check off four hundred
claws a minute? If that happened to be the case, our time must be
nearly up.

"When that idea came into my head, I jumped up and began to walk about.
What could I do? I certainly ought to be ready to do something when
the time came. I thought of getting life-preservers, and strapping one
on each of us, so that if the Water-devil turned over the vessel and
shook us out, we shouldn't sink down to him, but would float on the
surface.

"But then the thought struck me that if he should find the vessel empty
of live creatures, and should see us