und, watching the
boats go by--little boats, big boats, the Boston boat with all her
pearls and her dance-music. They couldn't see me; they didn't know who I
was; but to the last of them, they depended on _me_. They say a man must
be born again. Well, I was born again. I breathed deep in the wind.

Dawn broke hard and red as a dying coal. I put out the light and started
to go below. Born again; yes, sir. I felt so good I whistled in the
well, and when I came to the first door on the stair I reached out in
the dark to give it a rap for luck. And then, sir, the hair prickled all
over my scalp, when I found my hand just going on and on through the
air, the same as it had gone once before, and all of a sudden I wanted
to yell, because I thought I was going to touch flesh. It's funny what
their just forgetting to close their door did to me, isn't it?

Well, I reached for the latch and pulled it to with a bang and ran down
as if a ghost was after me. I got up some coffee and bread and bacon for
breakfast. I drank the coffee. But somehow I couldn't eat, all along of
that open door. The light in the room was blood. I got to thinking. I
thought how she'd talked about those men, women, and children on the
rocks, and how she'd made to bathe her hands over the rail. I almost
jumped out of my chair then; it seemed for a wink she was there beside
the stove watching me with that queer half-smile--really, I seemed to
see her for a flash across the red table-cloth in the red light of dawn.

"Look here!" said I to myself, sharp enough; and then I gave myself a
good laugh and went below. There I took a look out of the door, which
was still open, with the ladder hanging down. I made sure to see the
poor old fool come pulling around the point before very long now.

My boots were hurting a little, and, taking them off, I lay down on the
cot to rest, and somehow I went to sleep. I had horrible dreams. I saw
her again standing in that blood-red kitchen, and she seemed to be
washing her hands, and the surf on the ledge was whining up the tower,
louder and louder all the time, and what it whined was, "Night after
night--night after night." What woke me was cold water in my face.

The store-room was in gloom. That scared me at first; I thought night
had come, and remembered the light. But then I saw the gloom was of a
storm. The floor was shining wet, and the water in my face was spray,
flung up through the open door. When I ran to close it, i