astonish him greatly. This made me mad.

"Well, I guess I have a right to," I says. At this we both laughed very hard. So hard I couldn't stop, till he grabbed me by the arm.

"Mary!" he says.

We both tried to cast our moorings. The knots were jammed beyond fingers and teeth. He took out a knife and we cut loose. On the way to the hatch we come across Jesse sitting up straight, staring out to sea. He put his hand to his head and put it down again, looking at his fingers. What he found so interesting in the fingers I don't know, but he couldn't take his eyes off of them.

"Hurt, Jesse?" we asked him.

He turned a face like a child's to us. "My," he says, "wasn't it wet!"

"Come on!" says Sax; "he's all right!"

We pulled the scuttle off by main strength.

"Mary!" we called. "Mary!"

"Yes!" she answered. The relief was so sweet my knees weakened. She came to the stair and looked up. Durned if the old lantern wasn't burning. That knocked me. I remembered lighting that lantern several hundred years ago, and here it was, still burning!

"Are you hurt?" said Saxton.

"Not—no, not much," she answered. "But nearly dead from fright—is it over?"

"All over, thank God!" says Sax. "We only caught the edge of it, or— The moon is shining now. There's a heavy sea still, but that's harmless if the boat isn't strained—do you want us to stay with you?"

She looked up and laughed—a great deal nearer being sensible than either Sax or me.

"If I could stand the other, I can stand this alone—where's your promise, Arthur? You never came near me."

He took this very seriously. "Why, Mary," he began, "do you think I would have left you if I could have helped it! They closed the hatch—"

"Come along," I said. "She's joking."

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