“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.