faintly
through the gray of driving snow were all that showed where the enemy
lay, straining at her cables and tossing on a wrathful sea. They stood
long in silence, but at last the boy exclaimed, "I'm going to the ship."

"If you stir from here, you're no son of mine," said Ezekiel.

"But she's in danger, dad."

"As she oughter be. By mornin' she'll be strewed along the shore and not
a spar to mark where she's a-swingin' now."

"And the men?"

"It's a jedgment, boy."

The lad remembered how the sailors of the Ajax had come ashore to burn
the homes of peaceful fishermen and farmers; how women had been insulted;
how his friends and mates had been cut down at Long Island with British
lead and steel; how, when he ran to warn away a red-faced fellow that was
robbing his garden, the man had struck him on the shoulder with a
cutlass. He had sworn then to be revenged. But to let a host go down to
death and never lift a helping hand--was that a fair revenge? "I've got
to go, dad," he burst forth. "Tomorrow morning there'll be five hundred
faces turned up on the beach, covered with ice and staring at the sky,
and five hundred mothers in England will wonder when they're goin' to see
those faces again. If ever they looked at me the sight of 'em would never
go out of my eyes. I'd be harnted by 'em, awake and asleep. And to-morrow
is Thanksgiving. I've got to go, dad, and I will." So speaking, he rushed
away and was swallowed in the gloom.

The man stared after him; then, with a revulsion of feeling, he cried,
"You're right, 'Siah. I'll go with you." But had he called in tones of
thunder he would not have been heard in the roar of the wind and crash of
the surf. As he reached the shore he saw faintly on the phosphorescent
foam a something that climbed a hill of water; it was lost over its crest
and reappeared on the wave beyond; it showed for a moment on the third
wave, then it vanished in the night. "Josiah!" It was a long, querulous
cry. No answer. In half an hour a thing rode by the watcher on the sands
and fell with a crash beside him--a boat bottom up: his son's.

Next day broke clear, with new snow on the ground. In his house at
Provincetown, Captain Breeze was astir betimes, for his son Ezekiel, his
grandson Josiah, and all other relatives who were not at the front with
Washington were coming for the family reunion. Plump turkeys were ready
for the roasting, great loaves of bread and cake stood beside the oven,
redou