and left me master of the small ship.  I turned its prow homeward.  My preserver sat motionless, her eyes in the moon, for aught of notice she took of me.  I was going toward the river; she bade me keep to the bay-shore, at the right.  I obeyed.  No more words were spoken until we were almost to land.  I saw a little bulb afloat.  The boat went near.  I put out my oar and drew it in.  It was the althea-bud that I had offered to the sea-nymphs.

“‘The mermaids refuse my offering,’ I said; ’will you accept it?’—­and I handed it, dripping with salt-water, to the fairy who sat so silently before me.

“She took it, pointed to a little sheltered cove between two outstanding ledges of rock, and said,—­

“‘This is boatie’s home,—­see if you can guide her safely in.’

“The keel grated on the gravelly beach, the boat struck home.  The young girl did not wait for me, she landed first, and, handing me a tiny key, said,—­

“’Draw my boat up out of reach of the tide, make it fast, please,’—­and she sped away into the dreamy darkness of the land, whose shadows the moon did not yet reach, leaving me alone on the shore.

“I obeyed her orders implicitly, and then followed.  It was not far from this sheltered cove that I met those with whom I had come.  My mother was sitting upon one of the sea-shore rocks, passive, but stony.  The young girl had just been speaking to her, she must have been saying that ’I was come back,’ but my mother had not heeded.  It was only in sight that her reason came, but, oh! such a deluge of gladness came to her when she saw me!

“‘I was dying,’ she said; ‘you’ve come back to save me, Abraham.’

“My father did not speak then, he lifted my mother from off the stone, and together we three walked home.  Lettie lingered, the shadow with her.  Was that the young girl?  I could not quite discern.”

Mr. Axtell stopped in his narration, walked out of the village of Dead Percivals, and to his mother’s new-made grave.  He came back soon.

“Miss Percival,” he said, “two days ago you said, ’it was the strangest thing that ever you saw man do, to dig his mother’s grave.’  It was a work begun long ago; the first stroke was that August night; it is nearly nineteen years ago.  What do you think of it now?”

“As I thought then, Mr. Axtell.”

He stood near me now.  He went on.

“That young girl saved my life that night, Miss Percival.  Ere we reached home, a violent, sudden thunder-storm came down, with wind and rain, and terrible strokes of lightning.  We took shelter in another house than home.  Lettie and my preserver followed.”

Another long pause came, a gathering together of the forces of his nature, typical of the still hotness of the August night of which he spoke, and after the ominous rest he emitted ponderous words.  They came like crackles of rattling electricity.  I could taste it.

“Miss Percival, look at me one moment.”