but that was day, and this was midnight and murk!—­storms as I’d heard tell of them off Cape Race, when great steamers went down with but one cry, and the waters crowded them out of sight,—­storms where, out of the wilderness of waves that far and wide wasted white around, a single one came ploughing on straight to the mark, gathering its grinding masses mast-high, poising, plunging, and swamping and crashing them into bottomless pits of destruction,—­storms where waves toss and breakers gore, where, hanging on crests that slip from under, reefs impale the hull, and drowning wretches cling to the crags with stiffening hands, and the sleet ices them, and the spray, and the sea lashes and beats them with great strokes and sucks them down to death:  and right in the midst of it all there burst a gun,—­one, another, and no more.  “Oh, Faith!  Faith!” I cried again, and I ran and hid my head in the bed.

How long did I stay so?  An hour, or maybe two.  Dan was still dead with sleep, but mother had no more closed an eye than I. There was no rain now, the wind had fallen, the dark had lifted; I looked out once more, and could just see dimly the great waters swinging in the river from bank to bank.  I drew the bucket fresh, and bound the cloths cold on Dan’s head again.  I hadn’t a thought in my head, and I fell to counting the meshes in the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore.  It grew clearer,—­it got to being a universal gray; there’d been no sunrise, but it was day.  Dan stirred,—­he turned over heavily; then he opened his eyes wide and looked about him.

“I’ve had such a fright!” he said.  “Georgie! is that you?”

With that it swept over him afresh, and he fell back.  In a moment or two he tried to rise, but he was weak as a child.  He contrived to keep on his elbow a moment, though, and to give a look out of the window.

“It came on to blow, didn’t it?” he asked; but there he sank down again.

“I can’t stay so!” he murmured soon.  “I can’t stay so!  Here,—­I must tell you.  Georgie, get out the spy-glass, and go up on the roof and look over.  I’ve had a dream, I tell you!  I’ve had a dream.  Not that either,—­but it’s just stamped on me!  It was like a storm,—­and I dreamed that that schooner—­the Flyaway—­had parted.  And the half of her’s crashed down just as she broke, and Faith and that man are high up on the bows in the middle of the South Breaker!  Make haste, Georgie!  Christ! make haste!”

I flew to the drawers and opened them, and began to put the spy-glass together.  Suddenly he cried out again,—­

“Oh, here’s where the fault was!  What right had I ever to marry the child, not loving her?  I bound her!  I crushed her!  I stifled her!  If she lives, it is my sin; if she dies, I murder her!”

He hid his face, as he spoke, so that his voice came thick, and great choking groans rent their way up from his heart.