that she considered my efforts as some sort of rite which, at most, might comfort the dying.
Before noon, when the haze had lifted before the sweep of a north east wind, one of the children called. The mother went out, hurriedly, while I stood at the open door. About a mile away a stunning white schooner was steaming towards the entrance of Sweetapple Cove.
"I'm a-wonderin' what she be doin' here," said the woman, dully. "She ain't no ship of our parts. I never seen the like o' she."
There was a glinting of light cast forth by bright brasses, and I could see a red spot which appeared to indicate the presence of a woman on board, clad perhaps in a crimson cape or shawl.
We kept on staring at her for some time, as people do in forsaken places when a stranger passes by, and we returned to the bedside.
The day stretched out its interminable length, but the night was longer still. The children had been put to bed in dark corners, after a meal of fish and hard bread. The smallest had clamored for some tea.
"There ain't no more," said the mother.
I had noticed that she had put aside a very small package of this luxury, on a high shelf.
"Why don't you give them some?" I asked. "You forget that you have a little laid aside."
"There won't be none left fer you," she answered.
I ordered her to put the kettle on the fire at once and make tea for her young ones, and bade her take some also.
"I told Sammy Moore to bring some to-morrow," I told her.
I am afraid that I dozed a good many times, that night, on the little low stool near the bed. There was not much to be done. Gradually it dawned upon me that the man was getting better. The stimulants had produced some reaction, and the hot dry skin was becoming moister. I feared it might be but a temporary improvement, and hardly dared mention it. Yet the man was no longer delirious. Several times he asked for water, and once looked at me curiously, with a faint attempt at a smile, before his head again sank down on the pillow.
Finally the sunlight came again, shortly after the smoky lamp had been extinguished, and I went out of the house, when the chill of the early morning seized me so that for a moment my teeth chattered. The woman followed me.
"He do be a dreadful long time dyin'," she said, miserably.
I suppose that I was nervous and weary with the two long nights of watching, and lost mastery over myself. To me those words sounded heartless, although now I realize they came from the depth of her woe.
"You have no right to say such things," I reproved her sharply. "I don't think he is going to die. I believe that we have saved him."
Then she sank on the ground, grasping one of my chilly hands and weeping over it. These were the first tears she had shed and I saw how grievously I had erred. As gently as I could I lifted her to her feet.
"I'm sorry I spoke so gruffly," I said. "But I really believe that we are going to pull him through, and that we shall save his arm."
At noon-time we saw the white yacht coming out of Sweetapple Cove. She was speeding away in the direction of St. John's. The weather was beginning to spoil, and at the foot of the seaward cliffs the great seas, smooth and oily, boomed with great crashes that portended a coming storm.
Early in the afternoon the wind was coming in black squalls, accompanied by a rolling mist. As I looked towards the mainland I saw a fishing boat coming, leaning hard to the strong gale. An hour later Sammy and his man landed in the tiny cove and the old fellow came rushing towards me.
"You is wanted to come ter onst," he said. "They is a man come yisterday on that white yacht. He went up th' river fur salmon, jist after his boat left, and bruk the leg o' he slippin' on the rocks. Yer got to come right now,"
I took the small package he brought me and rushed up to the house with it The improvement had continued, and I gave careful directions in regard to continuing the treatment. After this I descended to the tiny beach where the boat was waiting.
"She be nasty when yer gets from the lee o' the island," Sammy informed me. "I mistrust its gettin' worse and some fog rollin' in wid' it. Mebbe yer doesn't jist feel like reskin' it?"
"How about your wife and children, Sammy?" I asked. "There is no one depending on me."
He took a long look, quietly gauging the possibilities.
"I'm a-thinkin' we's like to make it all right," he finally told me.
"And what about you and the little boy, Frenchy?" I asked the other man.
"Me go orright," he answered. "Me see heem baby again."
So we jumped aboard. The tiny cove was so sheltered that we had to give a few strokes of the oars before, suddenly, the little ship heeled to the blow.
CHAPTER III
From John Grant's Diary
In a few minutes the slight protection afforded us by Will's Island was denied us. I was anxious to ask further details about this injured man we were hurrying to see, but the two fishermen had no leisure for conversation. A few necessary words had to be shrieked. Even before I had finished putting on my oilskins the water was dashing over us, and old Sammy, at the tiller, was jockeying his boat with an intense preoccupation that could not be interfered with.
The smack was of a couple of tons' burden, undecked, with big fish-boxes built astern and amidships. She carried two slender masts with no bowsprit to speak of, having no headsails, and her two tanned wings bellied out while the whole of her fabric pitched and rolled over the white crested waves. The fog was growing denser around us, as if we had been journeying through a swift-moving cloud. It was scudding in from the Grand Banks, pushed by a chill gale which might first have passed over the icy plateaux of inner Greenland.
This lasted for a long time. We were all staring ahead and seeking to penetrate the blinding veil of vapor, and I felt more utterly strayed and lost than ever in my life before. Our faces were running with the salt spray that swished over the bows or flew over the quarters, to stream down into the bilge at our feet, foul with fragments of squid and caplin long dead. We were also beginning to listen eagerly for other sounds than the wind hissing in the cordage, the breaking of wave-tops and the hard thumping of the blunt bows upon the seas.
"Look out sharp, byes, I'm mistrusting'," roared old Sammy.
There were some long tense moments, ended by a shriek from Frenchy by the foremast.
"Hard a-lee!"
The sails shook in the wind and swung in-board, and out again, with a rattling of the little blocks. The forefoot rose high, once or twice, with the lessened headway, and a great savage mass of rock passed alongside, stretching out jagged spurs, like some wild beast robbed of its prey. Frenchy, ahead, crossed himself quietly, without excitement, and again peered into the fog.
"Close call!" I shouted to the skipper, after I had recovered my breath, since I am not yet entirely
