stop the old fiddle from making out the prettiest kind of case.

"He grabbed up his wooden box and made a miracle"

She sat with her chin in her hand, breathing deep. The violin would give a tug at her, and, as I say, her eyes would turn to Sax, and then she'd force them away again, over the water, slowly down to the deck once more. She was frightened. I don't blame her, for Sax was out of himself. He towered there in the moonlight making those inhumanly beautiful sounds, his face burning white and his eyes burning black, fire clean through, fire in every soople muscle, fire pulsing out of every heave of his shoulders, one handsome and scary figure. There was something so out-and-out wild in him, I swear he looked as if he could call up devils from the sea.

Well, when a man does get beyond the ordinary he scares the rest of the tribe. If two fellows start to fight, the bystanders will try to separate them. It's kind of instinct—I've done it many a time myself, when it would have been better to let the boys whack 'emselves good-natured instead of keeping the grudge sour on their stomachs. Anyway, I can't blame Mary for feeling leery of Sax when I confess that he put creeps in my spine. He seemed to grow till he filled the bow of the boat; the fiddle sung in my ears till I couldn't think straight; heavy medicine in it, you bet. Mary got whiter and whiter. I saw her constantly wetting her lips, and her hand went to her heart. The whole night was changed. The air was full of war and uneasiness. I wish to Heaven I knew how it might have ended, if nothing interrupted, because Saxton was doing magic. It was the queerest feeling I ever had. What Mary's feelings were I'd give something to know, but just when things were the tightest old Jesse come up and pulled my sleeve.

"Get the girl below quiet," he says. "Hell will be loose in a minute."

I stared at him. Coming on top of my queer sensations, it gummed my works. Jesse pointed to the sou'east.

A cloud was flying north, the center of it black, but wisps and streamers flew out white in the moonlight like steam from an explosion. To the north of it lay another storm, huge and heavy, black as death, except where lightning sprayed through it.

"Wind, Jesse?" I says.

"The last time I see a thing like that, boy," he says, "I made land three days later, aboard a hencoop—the only one of a hull ship's company. Get that girl below."

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