repeated Mr. Gabriel, and he said it was the only song he knew that held the click of the oar in the rowlock.

The little birds went skimming by us, as we sailed, their breasts upon the water, and we could see the gunners creeping through the marshes beside them.

“The wind changes,” said Mr. Gabriel.  “The equinox treads close behind us.  Sst!  Is it that you do not feel its breath?  And you hear nothing?”

“It’s the Soul of the Bar,” said Dan; and he fell to telling us one of the wild stories that fishermen can tell each other by the lantern rocking outside at night in the dory.

The wind was dead east, and now we flew before it, and now we tacked in it, up and up the winding stream, and always a little pointed sail came skimming on in suit.

“What sail is that, Dan?” asked I.  “It looks like the one that flitted ahead this morning.”

“It is the one,” said Dan,—­for he’d brought up a whole horde of superstitious memories, and a gloom that had been hovering off and on his face settled there for good.  “As much of a one as that was.  It’s no sail at all.  It’s a death-sign.  And I’ve never been down here and seen it but trouble was on its heels.  Georgie! there’s two of them!”

We all looked, but it was hidden in a curve, and when it stole in sight again there were two of them, filmy and faint as spirits’ wings,—­and while we gazed they vanished, whether supernaturally or in the mist that was rising mast-high I never thought, for my blood was frozen as it ran.

“You have fear?” asked Mr. Gabriel,—­his face perfectly pale, and his eye almost lost in darkness.  “If it is a phantom, it can do you no harm.”

Faith’s teeth chattered,—­I saw them.  He turned to her, and as their look met, a spot of carnation burned into his cheek almost as a brand would have burned.  He seemed to be balancing some point, to be searching her and sifting her; and Faith half rose, proudly, and pale, as if his look pierced her with pain.  The look was long,—­but before it fell, a glow and sparkle filled the eyes, and over his face there curled the deep, strange smile of the morning, till the long lids and heavy lashes dropped and made it sad.  And Faith,—­she started in a new surprise, the darkness gathered and crept off her face as cream wrinkles from milk, and spleen or venom or what-not became absorbed again and lost, and there was nothing in her glance but passionate forgetfulness.  Some souls are like the white river-lilies,—­fixed, yet floating; but Mr. Gabriel had no firm root anywhere, and was blown about with every breeze, like a leaf on the flood.  His purposes melted and made with his moods.

The wind got round more to the north, the mist fell upon the waters or blew away over the meadows, and it was cold.  Mr. Gabriel wrapped the cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet.  Just now Dan was so busy handling the boat—­and it’s rather risky, you have to wriggle up the creek so—­that he took little notice of us.  Then Mr. Gabriel stood up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead.  And leaning against the mast, he stood so, many minutes.