I thought quick, as he walked away. The fiddle had stopped. A wicked silence lay on everything. Old man Fear put his cold feet on me. I looked again at the mass to s'utherd. It boiled and turned and twisted. Big gusts of black and white shot crazily out to nowhere—she was climbing! Then I looked at the group. Mary sat white and still. Sax stood behind her, his fiddle by his side, holding the bow like a sword. He was white and still, too, and looking up to where the moon was going out. Their backs were turned to the devilry that threatened us.

I stepped forward,—easy as possible, and spoke to her.

"You're not looking well, Mary," I said. "Hadn't you better go down?"

That was before my poker days. Playing a four-flush gives a man control of his face and voice. She heard what I wanted to hide at once, being naturally sharp as a needle and tuned high that night.

"What's the matter?" says she.

"Matter?" says I, laughing gaily. "Why, I don't want to see you sick—come along like a good girl."

"Tell me why I should, and I will," she says. Well, what was the use? Hadn't she the right to know? When old Jesse said trouble was turning the corner, you could expect the knock on the door. He had the reputation of being the most fearless as well as the most careful skipper in the coast trade. He never took a chance, if there was nothing in it, and he'd take 'em all, if there was.

Sax bent to us. "What's up?" says he. I didn't say a word—pointed behind him. He looked for a full five seconds.

"Tornado, by God!" he says in a sort of savage whisper.

He took the violin and bow in those thin strong hands of his and crumpled 'em up, and threw the pieces overboard. I'll swear he felt what I did—that he had called up a devil from the sea.

Then he put a hand on Mary's shoulder. "Go below, sweetheart," he said.

"But you'll call me—you'll let me—" she says, an agony in her eyes.

"You ought to know that I will be with you, if there's no need of me here," he said. We stood stock-still for a minute. It had come with such a stunning bang.

"There is great danger, Mary," said Saxton. "But you'll be brave, my dear?"

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