wondered why he did not
insist. By what means, he cogitated, could he make her yield her will
to his? Her resistance he set down to coyness; all women had freaks;
they were alike in such matters. He divined after a while that she
would let go the lasso at any moment if he proved restive; so he
played the submissive to perfection. If she ever saw his eyes flame,
or any gesture which contained a threat, he never knew it; but every
revelation from him was a revelation to her of herself, and this was
to be her education and her punishment.

"Where is your friend Osgood?" he asked once.

"He has been away a long time," she answered, looking him full in the
face, but with rather a stony expression in her eyes.

"He is your relative?"

"Oh no."

"No? I thought so, always seeing you in the same places."

"Our families have been acquainted always."

"Do you think he is handsome?"

"Yes."

"He is too short" (Barclay was tall), "and his eyes have a wandering,
unsettled look."

"He is following his destiny by them," she answered, bitterly. "I wish
that I could follow mine as a man can."

"Do you mean that you would like to follow Osgood's eyes?"

"By no means; I must see destiny by your eyes."

The words were pleasant, but the tone was malicious. It made his heart
bound as if an invisible foe had come into his atmosphere to do battle
with him, and he could do nothing.

* * * * *

"'With the vapors all around, and the breakers on our lee,
Not a light is in the sky, not a light is on the sea.'--

barring the lantern abaft," roared Osgood, from the deck of the
schooner _Bonita_, which was tossing outside Cape Malabar.

"You may sing t'other side of your mouth afore long," bawled back the
skipper. "We ain't fur from the Cormorant Rocks; the wind p'r'aps will
shove us on the ledge."

"What, when we are just going home with full barrels?"

"The mackerel may be briled in Tophet for all we know."

The skipper was at the helm; Osgood and he were in the radius of a
lantern which revealed their faces to each other. Outside of that was
pitch darkness; the rain drove in fierce slants against them, and the
wind howled all round the sea.

The skipper did not look concerned, neither did Osgood; but they were
both wondering which would first break over the _Bonita_, the light of
morning or the sea.

"Them boys are asleep, I s'pose, wet to the bone?" the skipper yelled.

"Yes."