"I will, Arthur," she answered. Then her eyes filled with panic and she caught him around the neck. "Save me, Arthur! Save me!" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to die!"

Never in his life had Arthur Saxton stood up more of a man and gentleman. He put his hand on her head and looked courage into her. "Nor do I want to die while there's a chance of you," he said. "Now you'll believe and trust me, and go with Will?"

I think he kissed her—I don't remember. That hell aloft was sudsing fast to us, and I was dancing inside to do something beside wait for a drowning. Anyhow, old Jesse's voice ripped out ferocious; there was a rattle of blocks, and I put Mary below at the bottom of the step, picked up a lantern for her, told her we'd watch out more for her than we would for ourselves, and seeing how utterly God-forsaken the poor girl looked, I kissed her, too.

"Don't leave me, Will! Oh, don't!" she cried; "I can't stand it!"

"I must," I pleaded. "Mary, think! I may be some use."

She gripped herself. "That is so. Go, Will."

It hurt to go. The lantern made a dim light in which her face half showed. The shadows shifted black, here and there. From above came a grinding, shattering sort of roar, like a train crossing a bridge. It was horrible to leave a woman alone to face it. But then came a scurry and trampling of feet on deck; yells and orders. That was my place.

"Good-by! God save you!" I said, caught her hand for a good-by, and jumped up the stair.

I was just in time. They slammed the hatch down almost on my heels.

"Mary's there!" I screamed in Jesse's ear.

"It's her only chance!" he roared back.

On deck that machinery roar drowned everything. It rattled the bones in your body. The deck sung to it. You felt the humming on your feet. It dumbed and tortured you at the same time, like a fever-dream. You couldn't think for it, and your temper was spoiled entirely.

Lightning! My God! It was zippitty-flash-flash-flash, so fast and fearful that the whole world jumped out into broad day and back a hundred times a minute. Heaven send I'll never see another such sight as the sea those flashes showed. Under the spout it was as if somebody had run a club into a snake-hole. You got it, to the least crinkle, in the lightning blasts. There were walls 

 Prev. P 41/117 next