-law's husband be
wrecked for want of it?' And then I thought that he wouldn't want it
all that night, and perhaps they would buy oil the next day, and so I
poured out about a tumblerful of it on the water, and I can just tell
you sailormen that you never saw anything act as prompt as that did.
In three seconds, or perhaps five, the water all around me, for the
distance of a small front yard, was just as flat as a table and as
smooth as glass, and so invitin' in appearance that the three gulls
jumped out of the boat and began to swim about on it, primin' their
feathers and lookin' at themselves in the transparent depths, though I
must say that one of them made an awful face as he dipped his bill into
the water and tasted kerosene.

"Now I had time to sit quiet in the midst of the placid space I had
made for myself, and rest from workin' of the rudder. Truly it was a
wonderful and marvelous thing to look at. The waves was roarin' and
leapin' up all around me higher than the roof of this house, and
sometimes their tops would reach over so that they nearly met and shut
out all view of the stormy sky, which seemed as if it was bein' torn to
pieces by blazin' lightnin', while the thunder pealed so tremendous
that it almost drowned the roar of the waves. Not only above and all
around me was everything terrific and fearful, but even under me it was
the same, for there was a big crack in the bottom of the boat as wide
as my hand, and through this I could see down into the water beneath,
and there was--"

"Madam!" ejaculated Captain Bird, the hand which, had been holding his
pipe a few inches from his mouth now dropping to his knee; and at this
motion the hands which held the pipes of the three other mariners
dropped to their knees.

"Of course it sounds strange," continued the widow, "but I know that
people can see down into clear water, and the water under me was clear,
and the crack was wide enough for me to see through, and down under me
was sharks and swordfishes and other horrible water creatures, which I
had never seen before, all driven into the bay, I haven't a doubt, by
the violence of the storm out at sea. The thought of my bein' upset
and fallin' in among those monsters made my very blood run cold, and
involuntary-like I began to turn the handle of the rudder, and in a
moment I shot into a wall of ragin' sea-water that was towerin' around
me. For a second I was fairly blinded and stunned, but I had the cork