A Detail by Stephen Crane

The tiny old lady in the black dress and curious little black bonnet had at first seemed alarmed at the sound made by her feet upon the stone pavements. But later she forgot about it, for she suddenly came into the tempest of the Sixth Avenue shopping district, where from the streams of people and vehicles went up a roar like that from headlong mountain torrents.

She seemed then like a chip that catches, recoils, turns, and wheels, a reluctant thing in the clutch of the impetuous river. She hesitated, faltered, debated with herself. Frequently she seemed about to address people; then of a sudden she would evidently lose her courage. Meanwhile the torrent jostled her, swung her this way and that way.

At last, however, she saw two young women gazing in at a shop window. They were well-dressed girls; they wore gowns with enormous sleeves that made them look like full-rigged ships with all sails set. They seemed to have plenty of time; they leisurely scanned the goods in the window. Other people had made the tiny old woman much afraid because obviously they were speeding to keep such tremendously important engagements. She went close to the girls and peered in at the same window. She watched them furtively for a time. Then finally she said: "Excuse me!"

The girls looked down at this old face with its two large eyes turned toward them.

"Excuse me: can you tell me where I can get any work?"

For an instant the two girls stared. Then they seemed about to exchange a smile, but, at the last moment, they checked it. The tiny old lady's eyes were upon them. She was quaintly serious, silently expectant. She made one marvel that in that face the wrinkles showed no trace of experience, knowledge; they were simply little soft, innocent creases. As for her glance, it had the trustfulness of ignorance and the candor of babyhood.

"I want to get something to do, because I need the money," she continued, since, in their astonishment, they had not replied to her first question. "Of course I'm not strong and I couldn't do very much, but I can sew well; and in a house where there was a good many menfolks, I could do all the mending. Do you know of any place where they would like me to come?"

The young women did then exchange a smile, but it was a subtle tender smile, the edge of personal grief.

"Well, no, madam," hesitatingly said one of them at last; "I don't think I know anyone."

A shade passed over the tiny old lady's face, a shadow of the wing of disappointment. "Don't you?" she said, with a little struggle to be brave in her voice.

Then the girl hastily continued: "But if you will give me your address, I may find someone, and if I do, I will surely let you know of it."

The tiny old lady dictated her address, bending over to watch the girl write on a visiting card with a silver pencil. Then she said: "I thank you very much." She bowed to them, smiling, and went on down the avenue.

As for the two girls, they walked to the curb and watched this aged figure, small and frail, in its black gown and curious black bonnet. At last, the crowd, the innumerable wagons, intermingling and changing with uproar and riot, suddenly engulfed it.

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane

I.

The great pullman was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward. Vast flats of green grass, dull-hued spaces of mesquite and cactus, little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice.

A newly married pair had boarded this coach at San Antonio. The man's face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result of his new black clothes was that his brick-colored hands were constantly performing in a most conscious fashion. From time to time he looked down respectfully at his attire. He sat with a hand on each knee, like a man waiting in a barber's shop. The glances he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy.

The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. She wore a dress of blue cashmere, with small reservations of velvet here and there and with steel buttons abounding. She continually twisted her head to regard her puff sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high. They embarrassed her. It was quite apparent that she had cooked, and that she expected to cook, dutifully. The blushes caused by the careless scrutiny of some passengers as she had entered the car were strange to see upon this plain, under-class countenance, which was drawn in placid, almost emotionless lines.

They were evidently very happy. "Ever been in a parlor-car before?" he asked, smiling with delight.

"No," she answered, "I never was. It's fine, ain't it?"

"Great! And then after a while we'll go forward to the diner and get a big layout. Finest meal in the world. Charge a dollar."

"Oh, do they?" cried the bride. "Charge a dollar? Why, that's too much -- for us -- ain't it, Jack?"

"Not this trip, anyhow," he answered bravely. "We're going to go the whole thing."

Later, he explained to her about the trains. "You see, it's a thousand miles from one end of Texas to the other, and this train runs right across it and never stops but four times." He had the pride of an owner. He pointed out to her the dazzling fittings of the coach, and in truth her eyes opened wider as she contemplated the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil. At one end a bronze figure sturdily held a support for a separated chamber, and at convenient places on the ceiling were frescoes in olive and silver.

To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of their marriage that morning in San Antonio. This was the environment of their new estate, and the man's face in particular beamed with an elation that made him appear ridiculous to the negro porter. This individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior grin. On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied. He subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery. He oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small knowledge, and they speedily forgot that infrequently a number of travelers covered them with stares of derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed to be something infinitely humorous in their situation.

"We are due in Yellow Sky at 3:42," he said, looking tenderly into her eyes.

"Oh, are we?" she said, as if she had not been aware of it. To evince surprise at her husband's statement was part of her wifely amiability. She took from a pocket a little silver watch, and as she held it before her and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new husband's face shone.

"I bought it in San Anton' from a friend of mine," he told her gleefully.

"It's seventeen minutes past twelve," she said, looking up at him with a kind of shy and clumsy coquetry. A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively sardonic, and winked at himself in one of the numerous mirrors.

At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of negro waiters, in glowing white suits, surveyed their entrance with the interest and also the equanimity of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot, his countenance radiant with benevolence. The patronage, entwined with the ordinary deference, was not plain to them. And yet, as they returned to their coach, they showed in their faces a sense of escape.

To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a little ribbon of mist where moved the keening Rio Grande. The train was approaching it at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent that, as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became commensurately restless. His brick-red hands were more insistent in their prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far-away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him.

As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to find the shadow of a deed weigh upon him like a leaden slab. He, the town marshal of Yellow Sky, a man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a prominent person, had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved, and there, after the usual prayers, had actually induced her to marry him, without consulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction. He was now bringing his bride before an innocent and unsuspecting community.

Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them, in accordance with a general custom; but such was Potter's thought of his duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was heinous. He had committed an extraordinary crime. Face to face with this girl in San Antonio, and spurred by his sharp impulse, he had gone headlong over all the social hedges. At San Antonio he was like a man hidden in the dark. A knife to sever any friendly duty, any form, was easy to his hand in that remote city. But the hour of Yellow Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching.

He knew full well that his marriage was an important thing to his town. It could only be exceeded by the burning of the new hotel. His friends could not forgive him. Frequently he had reflected on the advisability of telling them by telegraph, but a new cowardice had been upon him. He feared to do it. And now the train was hurrying him toward a scene of amazement, glee, and reproach. He glanced out of the window at the line of haze swinging slowly in towards the train.

Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band, which played painfully, to the delight of the populace. He laughed without heart as he thought of it. If the citizens could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride, they would parade the band at the station and escort them, amid cheers and laughing congratulations, to his adobe home.

He resolved that he would use all the devices of speed and plains-craft in making the journey from the station to his house. Once within that safe citadel he could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin, and then not go among the citizens until they had time to wear off a little of their enthusiasm.

The bride looked anxiously at him. "What's worrying you, Jack?"

He laughed again. "I'm not worrying, girl. I'm only thinking of Yellow Sky."

She flushed in comprehension.

A sense of mutual guilt invaded their minds and developed a finer tenderness. They looked at each other with eyes softly aglow. But Potter often laughed the same nervous laugh. The flush upon the bride's face seemed quite permanent.

The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky narrowly watched the speeding landscape. "We're nearly there," he said.

Presently the porter came and announced the proximity of Potter's home. He held a brush in his hand and, with all his airy superiority gone, he brushed Potter's new clothes as the latter slowly turned this way and that way. Potter fumbled out a coin and gave it to the porter, as he had seen others do. It was a heavy and muscle-bound business, as that of a man shoeing his first horse.

The porter took their bag, and as the train began to slow they moved forward to the hooded platform of the car. Presently the two engines and their long string of coaches rushed into the station of Yellow Sky.

"They have to take water here," said Potter, from a constricted throat and in mournful cadence, as one announcing death. Before the train stopped, his eye had swept the length of the platform, and he was glad and astonished to see there was none upon it but the station-agent, who, with a slightly hurried and anxious air, was walking toward the water-tanks. When the train had halted, the porter alighted first and placed in position a little temporary step.

"Come on, girl," said Potter hoarsely. As he helped her down they each laughed on a false note. He took the bag from the negro, and bade his wife cling to his arm. As they slunk rapidly away, his hang-dog glance perceived that they were unloading the two trunks, and also that the station-agent far ahead near the baggage-car had turned and was running toward him, making gestures. He laughed, and groaned as he laughed, when he noted the first effect of his marital bliss upon Yellow Sky. He gripped his wife's arm firmly to his side, and they fled. Behind them the porter stood chuckling fatuously.


II.

The California Express on the Southern Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the "Weary Gentleman" saloon. One was a drummer who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders who did not talk as a general practice in the "Weary Gentleman" saloon. The barkeeper's dog lay on the board walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh-cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great, plum-colored plain of mesquite.

Save for the busy drummer and his companions in the saloon, Yellow Sky was dozing. The new-comer leaned gracefully upon the bar, and recited many tales with the confidence of a bard who has come upon a new field.

" -- and at the moment that the old man fell down stairs with the bureau in his arms, the old woman was coming up with two scuttles of coal, and, of course -- "

The drummer's tale was interrupted by a young man who suddenly appeared in the open door. He cried: "Scratchy Wilson's drunk, and has turned loose with both hands." The two Mexicans at once set down their glasses and faded out of the rear entrance of the saloon.

The drummer, innocent and jocular, answered: "All right, old man. S'pose he has. Come in and have a drink, anyhow."

But the information had made such an obvious cleft in every skull in the room that the drummer was obliged to see its importance. All had become instantly solemn. "Say," said he, mystified, "what is this?" His three companions made the introductory gesture of eloquent speech, but the young man at the door forestalled them.

"It means, my friend," he answered, as he came into the saloon, "that for the next two hours this town won't be a health resort."

The barkeeper went to the door and locked and barred it. Reaching out of the window, he pulled in heavy wooden shutters and barred them. Immediately a solemn, chapel-like gloom was upon the place. The drummer was looking from one to another.

"But, say," he cried, "what is this, anyhow? You don't mean there is going to be a gun-fight?"

"Don't know whether there'll be a fight or not," answered one man grimly. "But there'll be some shootin' -- some good shootin'."

The young man who had warned them waved his hand. "Oh, there'll be a fight fast enough if anyone wants it. Anybody can get a fight out there in the street. There's a fight just waiting."

The drummer seemed to be swayed between the interest of a foreigner and a perception of personal danger.

"What did you say his name was?" he asked.

"Scratchy Wilson," they answered in chorus.

"And will he kill anybody? What are you going to do? Does this happen often? Does he rampage around like this once a week or so? Can he break in that door?"

"No, he can't break down that door," replied the barkeeper. "He's tried it three times. But when he comes you'd better lay down on the floor, stranger. He's dead sure to shoot at it, and a bullet may come through."

Thereafter the drummer kept a strict eye upon the door. The time had not yet been called for him to hug the floor, but, as a minor precaution, he sidled near to the wall. "Will he kill anybody?" he said again.

The men laughed low and scornfully at the question.

"He's out to shoot, and he's out for trouble. Don't see any good in experimentin' with him."

"But what do you do in a case like this? What do you do?"

A man responded: "Why, he and Jack Potter -- "

"But," in chorus, the other men interrupted, "Jack Potter's in San Anton'."

"Well, who is he? What's he got to do with it?"

"Oh, he's the town marshal. He goes out and fights Scratchy when he gets on one of these tears."

"Wow," said the drummer, mopping his brow. "Nice job he's got."

The voices had toned away to mere whisperings. The drummer wished to ask further questions which were born of an increasing anxiety and bewilderment; but when he attempted them, the men merely looked at him in irritation and motioned him to remain silent. A tense waiting hush was upon them. In the deep shadows of the room their eyes shone as they listened for sounds from the street. One man made three gestures at the barkeeper, and the latter, moving like a ghost, handed him a glass and a bottle. The man poured a full glass of whisky, and set down the bottle noiselessly. He gulped the whisky in a swallow, and turned again toward the door in immovable silence. The drummer saw that the barkeeper, without a sound, had taken a Winchester from beneath the bar. Later he saw this individual beckoning to him, so he tiptoed across the room.

"You better come with me back of the bar."

"No, thanks," said the drummer, perspiring. "I'd rather be where I can make a break for the back door."

Whereupon the man of bottles made a kindly but peremptory gesture. The drummer obeyed it, and finding himself seated on a box with his head below the level of the bar, balm was laid upon his soul at sight of various zinc and copper fittings that bore a resemblance to armor-plate. The barkeeper took a seat comfortably upon an adjacent box.

"You see," he whispered, "this here Scratchy Wilson is a wonder with a gun -- a perfect wonder -- and when he goes on the war trail, we hunt our holes -- naturally. He's about the last one of the old gang that used to hang out along the river here. He's a terror when he's drunk. When he's sober he's all right -- kind of simple -- wouldn't hurt a fly -- nicest fellow in town. But when he's drunk -- whoo!"

There were periods of stillness. "I wish Jack Potter was back from San Anton'," said the barkeeper. "He shot Wilson up once -- in the leg -- and he would sail in and pull out the kinks in this thing."

Presently they heard from a distance the sound of a shot, followed by three wild yowls. It instantly removed a bond from the men in the darkened saloon. There was a shuffling of feet. They looked at each other. "Here he comes," they said.


III.

A man in a maroon-colored flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration and made, principally, by some Jewish women on the east side of New York, rounded a corner and walked into the middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. In either hand the man held a long, heavy, blue-black revolver. Often he yelled, and these cries rang through a semblance of a deserted village, shrilly flying over the roofs in a volume that seemed to have no relation to the ordinary vocal strength of a man. It was as if the surrounding stillness formed the arch of a tomb over him. These cries of ferocious challenge rang against walls of silence. And his boots had red tops with gilded imprints, of the kind beloved in winter by little sledding boys on the hillsides of New England.

The man's face flamed in a rage begot of whisky. His eyes, rolling and yet keen for ambush, hunted the still doorways and windows. He walked with the creeping movement of the midnight cat. As it occurred to him, he roared menacing information. The long revolvers in his hands were as easy as straws; they were moved with an electric swiftness. The little fingers of each hand played sometimes in a musician's way. Plain from the low collar of the shirt, the cords of his neck straightened and sank, straightened and sank, as passion moved him. The only sounds were his terrible invitations. The calm adobes preserved their demeanor at the passing of this small thing in the middle of the street.

There was no offer of fight; no offer of fight. The man called to the sky. There were no attractions. He bellowed and fumed and swayed his revolvers here and everywhere.

The dog of the barkeeper of the "Weary Gentleman" saloon had not appreciated the advance of events. He yet lay dozing in front of his master's door. At sight of the dog, the man paused and raised his revolver humorously. At sight of the man, the dog sprang up and walked diagonally away, with a sullen head, and growling. The man yelled, and the dog broke into a gallop. As it was about to enter an alley, there was a loud noise, a whistling, and something spat the ground directly before it. The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction. Again there was a noise, a whistling, and sand was kicked viciously before it. Fear-stricken, the dog turned and flurried like an animal in a pen. The man stood laughing, his weapons at his hips.

Ultimately the man was attracted by the closed door of the "Weary Gentleman" saloon. He went to it, and hammering with a revolver, demanded drink.

The door remaining imperturbable, he picked a bit of paper from the walk and nailed it to the framework with a knife. He then turned his back contemptuously upon this popular resort, and walking to the opposite side of the street, and spinning there on his heel quickly and lithely, fired at the bit of paper. He missed it by a half inch. He swore at himself, and went away. Later, he comfortably fusilladed the windows of his most intimate friend. The man was playing with this town. It was a toy for him.

But still there was no offer of fight. The name of Jack Potter, his ancient antagonist, entered his mind, and he concluded that it would be a glad thing if he should go to Potter's house and by bombardment induce him to come out and fight. He moved in the direction of his desire, chanting Apache scalp-music.

When he arrived at it, Potter's house presented the same still front as had the other adobes. Taking up a strategic position, the man howled a challenge. But this house regarded him as might a great stone god. It gave no sign. After a decent wait, the man howled further challenges, mingling with them wonderful epithets.

Presently there came the spectacle of a man churning himself into deepest rage over the immobility of a house. He fumed at it as the winter wind attacks a prairie cabin in the North. To the distance there should have gone the sound of a tumult like the fighting of two hundred Mexicans. As necessity bade him, he paused for breath or to reload his revolvers.


IV.

Potter and his bride walked sheepishly and with speed. Sometimes they laughed together shamefacedly and low.

"Next corner, dear," he said finally.

They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed against a strong wind. Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance of the new home when, as they circled the corner, they came face to face with a man in a maroon-colored shirt who was feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom's chest.

There was silence. Potter's mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the woman's grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites gazing at the apparitional snake.

The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces. He of the revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity.

"Tried to sneak up on me," he said. "Tried to sneak up on me!" His eyes grew more baleful. As Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously forward. "No, don't you do it, Jack Potter. Don't you move a finger toward a gun just yet. Don't you move an eyelash. The time has come for me to settle with you, and I'm goin' to do it my own way and loaf along with no interferin'. So if you don't want a gun bent on you, just mind what I tell you."

Potter looked at his enemy. "I ain't got a gun on me, Scratchy," he said. "Honest, I ain't." He was stiffening and steadying, but yet somewhere at the back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated, the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil -- all the glory of the marriage, the environment of the new estate. "You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I ain't got a gun on me. You'll have to do all the shootin' yourself."

His enemy's face went livid. He stepped forward and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potter's chest. "Don't you tell me you ain't got no gun on you, you whelp. Don't tell me no lie like that. There ain't a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun. Don't take me for no kid." His eyes blazed with light, and his throat worked like a pump.

"I ain't takin' you for no kid," answered Potter. His heels had not moved an inch backward. "I'm takin' you for a -- -- -- fool. I tell you I ain't got a gun, and I ain't. If you're goin' to shoot me up, you better begin now. You'll never get a chance like this again."

So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson's rage. He was calmer. "If you ain't got a gun, why ain't you got a gun?" he sneered. "Been to Sunday-school?"

"I ain't got a gun because I've just come from San Anton' with my wife. I'm married," said Potter. "And if I'd thought there was going to be any galoots like you prowling around when I brought my wife home, I'd had a gun, and don't you forget it."

"Married!" said Scratchy, not at all comprehending.

"Yes, married. I'm married," said Potter distinctly.

"Married?" said Scratchy. Seemingly for the first time he saw the drooping, drowning woman at the other man's side. "No!" he said. He was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side. "Is this the lady?" he asked.

"Yes, this is the lady," answered Potter.

There was another period of silence.

"Well," said Wilson at last, slowly, "I s'pose it's all off now."

"It's all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didn't make the trouble." Potter lifted his valise.

"Well, I 'low it's off, Jack," said Wilson. He was looking at the ground. "Married!" He was not a student of chivalry; it was merely that in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand.

1898

The Open Boat by Stephen Crane

A Tale intended to be after the fact. Being the experience of four men
from the sunk steamer "Commodore"


I.

None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and
were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of
the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and
all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and
widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with
waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to
have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These
waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each
froth-top was a problem in small-boat navigation.

The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six
inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were
rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest
dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was
a narrow clip." As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the
broken sea.

The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes
raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the
stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.

The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and
wondered why he was there.

The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that
profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least,
to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails,
the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel
is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he commanded for a day or a
decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in
the greys of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a top-mast
with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low
and lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his
voice. Although steady, it was, deep with mourning, and of a quality
beyond oration or tears.

"Keep 'er a little more south, Billie," said he.

"'A little more south,' sir," said the oiler in the stern.

A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and by
the same token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and
reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for
it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The
manner of her scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and,
moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily these problems in white
water, the foam racing down from the summit of each wave, requiring a
new leap, and a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully bumping a
crest, she would slide, and race, and splash down a long incline, and
arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace.

A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after
successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another
behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do
something effective in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dingey
one can get an idea of the resources of the sea in the line of waves
that is not probable to the average experience which is never at sea in
a dingey. As each slatey wall of water approached, it shut all else from
the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine
that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last
effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the
waves, and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests.

In the wan light, the faces of the men must have been grey. Their eyes
must have glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed
from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtless have been weirdly
picturesque. But the men in the boat had no time to see it, and if they
had had leisure there were other things to occupy their minds. The sun
swung steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day because the
color of the sea changed from slate to emerald-green, streaked with
amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the
breaking day was unknown to them. They were aware only of this effect
upon the color of the waves that rolled toward them.

In disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the
difference between a life-saving station and a house of refuge. The cook
had said: "There's a house of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet
Light, and as soon as they see us, they'll come off in their boat and
pick us up."

"As soon as who see us?" said the correspondent.

"The crew," said the cook.

"Houses of refuge don't have crews," said the correspondent. "As I
understand them, they are only places where clothes and grub are stored
for the benefit of shipwrecked people. They don't carry crews."

"Oh, yes, they do," said the cook.

"No, they don't," said the correspondent.

"Well, we're not there yet, anyhow," said the oiler, in the stern.

"Well," said the cook, "perhaps it's not a house of refuge that I'm
thinking of as being near Mosquito Inlet Light. Perhaps it's a life-
saving station."

"We're not there yet," said the oiler, in the stern.


II.

As the boat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the
hair of the hatless men, and as the craft plopped her stern down again
the spray splashed past them. The crest of each of these waves was a
hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad
tumultuous expanse, shining and wind-riven. It was probably splendid. It
was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of
emerald and white and amber.

"Bully good thing it's an on-shore wind," said the cook; "If not, where
would we be? Wouldn't have a show."

"That's right," said the correspondent.

The busy oiler nodded his assent.

Then the captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way that expressed humor,
contempt, tragedy, all in one. "Do you think We've got much of a show
now, boys?" said he.

Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of hemming and
hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be
childish and stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the
situation in their mind. A young man thinks doggedly at such times. On
the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly against any
open suggestion of hopelessness. So they were silent.

"Oh, well," said the captain, soothing his children, "We'll get ashore
all right."

But there was that in his tone which made them think, so the oiler
quoth: "Yes! If this wind holds!"

The cook was bailing: "Yes! If we don't catch hell in the surf."

Canton flannel gulls flew near and far. Sometimes they sat down on the
sea, near patches of brown seaweed that rolled on the waves with a
movement like carpets on a line in a gale. The birds sat comfortably in
groups, and they were envied by some in the dingey, for the wrath of the
sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a
thousand miles inland. Often they came very close and stared at the men
with black bead-like eyes. At these times they were uncanny and sinister
in their unblinking scrutiny, and the men hooted angrily at them,
telling them to be gone. One came, and evidently decided to alight on
the top of the captain's head. The bird flew parallel to the boat and
did not circle, but made short sidelong jumps in the air in chicken-
fashion. His black eyes were wistfully fixed upon the captain's head.
"Ugly brute," said the oiler to the bird. "You look as if you were made
with a jack-knife." The cook and the correspondent swore darkly at the
creature. The captain naturally wished to knock it away with the end of
the heavy painter; but he did not dare do it, because anything
resembling an emphatic gesture would have capsized this freighted boat,
and so with his open hand, the captain gently and carefully waved the
gull away. After it had been discouraged from the pursuit the captain
breathed easier on account of his hair, and others breathed easier
because the bird struck their minds at this time as being somehow
grewsome and ominous.

In the meantime the oiler and the correspondent rowed And also they
rowed.

They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the
oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the
oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed. The very
ticklish part of the business was when the time came for the reclining
one in the stern to take his turn at the oars. By the very last star of
truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change
seats in the dingey. First the man in the stern slid his hand along the
thwart and moved with care, as if he were of Sèvres. Then the man in the
rowing seat slid his hand along the other thwart. It was all done with
most extraordinary care. As the two sidled past each other, the whole
party kept watchful eyes on the coming wave, and the captain cried:
"Look out now! Steady there!"

The brown mats of seaweed that appeared from time to time were like
islands, bits of earth. They were traveling, apparently, neither one way
nor the other. They were, to all intents, stationary. They informed the
men in the boat that it was making progress slowly toward the land.

The captain, rearing cautiously in the bow, after the dingey soared on a
great swell, said that he had seen the light-house at Mosquito Inlet.
Presently the cook remarked that he had seen it. The correspondent was
at the oars then, and for some reason he too wished to look at the
lighthouse, but his back was toward the far shore and the waves were
important, and for some time he could not seize an opportunity to turn
his head. But at last there came a wave more gentle than the others, and
when at the crest of it he swiftly scoured the western horizon.

"See it?" said the captain.

"No," said the correspondent slowly, "I didn't see anything."

"Look again," said the captain. He pointed. "It's exactly in that
direction."

At the top of another wave, the correspondent did as he was bid, and
this time his eyes chanced on a small still thing on the edge of the
swaying horizon. It was precisely like the point of a pin. It took an
anxious eye to find a light house so tiny.

"Think we'll make it, captain?"

"If this wind holds and the boat don't swamp, we can't do much else,"
said the captain.

The little boat, lifted by each towering sea, and splashed viciously by
the crests, made progress that in the absence of seaweed was not
apparent to those in her. She seemed just a wee thing wallowing,
miraculously top-up, at the mercy of five oceans. Occasionally, a great
spread of water, like white flames, swarmed into her.

"Bail her, cook," said the captain serenely.

"All right, captain," said the cheerful cook.


III.

It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was
here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one
mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him.
They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they
were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be
common. The hurt captain, lying against the water-jar in the bow, spoke
always in a low voice and calmly, but he could never command a more
ready and swiftly obedient crew than the motley three of the dingey. It
was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety.
There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And
after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this
comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to
be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his
life. But no one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.

"I wish we had a sail," remarked the captain. "We might try my overcoat
on the end of an oar and give you two boys a chance to rest." So the
cook and the correspondent held the mast and spread wide the overcoat.
The oiler steered, and the little boat made good way with her new rig.
Sometimes the oiler had to scull sharply to keep a sea from breaking
into the boat, but otherwise sailing was a success.

Meanwhile the lighthouse had been growing slowly larger. It had now
almost assumed color, and appeared like a little grey shadow on the sky.
The man at the oars could not be prevented from turning his head rather
often to try for a glimpse of this little grey shadow.

At last, from the top of each wave the men in the tossing boat could see
land. Even as the lighthouse was an upright shadow on the sky, this land
seemed but a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly was thinner than
paper. "We must be about opposite New Smyrna," said the cook, who had
coasted this shore often in schooners. "Captain, by the way, I believe
they abandoned that life-saving station there about a year ago."

"Did they?" said the captain.

The wind slowly died away. The cook and the correspondent were not now
obliged to slave in order to hold high the oar. But the waves continued
their old impetuous swooping at the dingey, and the little craft, no
longer under way, struggled woundily over them. The oiler or the
correspondent took the oars again.

Shipwrecks are _à propos_ of nothing. If men could only train for
them and have them occur when the men had reached pink condition, there
would be less drowning at sea. Of the four in the dingey none had slept
any time worth mentioning for two days and two nights previous to
embarking in the dingey, and in the excitement of clambering about the
deck of a foundering ship they had also forgotten to eat heartily.

For these reasons, and for others, neither the oiler nor the
correspondent was fond of rowing at this time. The correspondent
wondered ingenuously how in the name of all that was sane could there be
people who thought it amusing to row a boat. It was not an amusement; it
was a diabolical punishment, and even a genius of mental aberrations
could never conclude that it was anything but a horror to the muscles
and a crime against the back. He mentioned to the boat in general how
the amusement of rowing struck him, and the weary-faced oiler smiled in
full sympathy. Previously to the foundering, by the way, the oiler had
worked double-watch in the engine-room of the ship.

"Take her easy, now, boys," said the captain. "Don't spend yourselves.
If we have to run a surf you'll need all your strength, because we'll
sure have to swim for it. Take your time."

Slowly the land arose from the sea. From a black line it became a line
of black and a line of white, trees and sand. Finally, the captain said
that he could make out a house on the shore. "That's the house of
refuge, sure," said the cook. "They'll see us before long, and come out
after us."

The distant lighthouse reared high. "The keeper ought to be able to make
us out now, if he's looking through a glass," said the captain. "He'll
notify the life-saving people."

"None of those other boats could have got ashore to give word of the
wreck," said the oiler, in a low voice. "Else the lifeboat would be out
hunting us."

Slowly and beautifully the land loomed out of the sea. The wind came
again. It had veered from the north-east to the south-east. Finally, a
new sound struck the ears of the men in the boat. It was the low thunder
of the surf on the shore. "We'll never be able to make the lighthouse
now," said the captain. "Swing her head a little more north, Billie,"
said he.

"'A little more north,' sir," said the oiler.

Whereupon the little boat turned her nose once more down the wind, and
all but the oarsman watched the shore grow. Under the influence of this
expansion doubt and direful apprehension was leaving the minds of the
men. The management of the boat was still most absorbing, but it could
not prevent a quiet cheerfulness. In an hour, perhaps, they would be
ashore.

Their backbones had become thoroughly used to balancing in the boat, and
they now rode this wild colt of a dingey like circus men. The
correspondent thought that he had been drenched to the skin, but
happening to feel in the top pocket of his coat, he found therein eight
cigars. Four of them were soaked with sea-water; four were perfectly
scathless. After a search, somebody produced three dry matches, and
thereupon the four waifs rode impudently in their little boat, and with
an assurance of an impending rescue shining in their eyes, puffed at the
big cigars and judged well and ill of all men. Everybody took a drink of
water.


IV.

"Cook," remarked the captain, "there don't seem to be any signs of life
about your house of refuge."

"No," replied the cook. "Funny they don't see us!"

A broad stretch of lowly coast lay before the eyes of the men. It was of
dunes topped with dark vegetation. The roar of the surf was plain, and
sometimes they could see the white lip of a wave as it spun up the
beach. A tiny house was blocked out black upon the sky. Southward, the
slim lighthouse lifted its little grey length.

Tide, wind, and waves were swinging the dingey northward. "Funny they
don't see us," said the men.

The surf's roar was here dulled, but its tone was, nevertheless,
thunderous and mighty. As the boat swam over the great rollers, the men
sat listening to this roar. "We'll swamp sure," said everybody.

It is fair to say here that there was not a life-saving station within
twenty miles in either direction, but the men did not know this fact,
and in consequence they made dark and opprobrious remarks concerning the
eyesight of the nation's life-savers. Four scowling men sat in the
dingey and surpassed records in the invention of epithets.

"Funny they don't see us."

The lightheartedness of a former time had completely faded. To their
sharpened minds it was easy to conjure pictures of all kinds of
incompetency and blindness and, indeed, cowardice. There was the shore
of the populous land, and it was bitter and bitter to them that from it
came no sign.

"Well," said the captain, ultimately, "I suppose we'll have to make a
try for ourselves. If we stay out here too long, we'll none of us have
strength left to swim after the boat swamps."

And so the oiler, who was at the oars, turned the boat straight for the
shore. There was a sudden tightening of muscle. There was some thinking.

"If we don't all get ashore--" said the captain. "If we don't all get
ashore, I suppose you fellows know where to send news of my finish?"

They then briefly exchanged some addresses and admonitions. As for the
reflections of the men, there was a great deal of rage in them.
Perchance they might be formulated thus: "If I am going to be drowned--
if I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned, why, in the
name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus
far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my
nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese of life? It
is preposterous. If this old ninny-woman, Fate, cannot do better than
this, she should be deprived of the management of men's fortunes. She is
an old hen who knows not her intention. If she has decided to drown me,
why did she not do it in the beginning and save me all this trouble? The
whole affair is absurd.... But no, she cannot mean to drown me. She dare
not drown me. She cannot drown me. Not after all this work." Afterward
the man might have had an impulse to shake his fist at the clouds: "Just
you drown me, now, and then hear what I call you!"

The billows that came at this time were more formidable. They seemed
always just about to break and roll over the little boat in a turmoil of
foam. There was a preparatory and long growl in the speech of them. No
mind unused to the sea would have concluded that the dingey could ascend
these sheer heights in time. The shore was still afar. The oiler was a
wily surfman. "Boys," he said swiftly, "she won't live three minutes
more, and we're too far out to swim. Shall I take her to sea again,
captain?"

"Yes! Go ahead!" said the captain.

This oiler, by a series of quick miracles, and fast and steady
oarsmanship, turned the boat in the middle of the surf and took her
safely to sea again.

There was a considerable silence as the boat bumped over the furrowed
sea to deeper water. Then somebody in gloom spoke. "Well, anyhow, they
must have seen us from the shore by now."

The gulls went in slanting flight up the wind toward the grey desolate
east. A squall, marked by dingy clouds, and clouds brick-red, like smoke
from a burning building, appeared from the south-east.

"What do you think of those life-saving people? Ain't they peaches?'

"Funny they haven't seen us."

"Maybe they think we're out here for sport! Maybe they think we're
fishin'. Maybe they think we're damned fools."

It was a long afternoon. A changed tide tried to force them southward,
but the wind and wave said northward. Far ahead, where coast-line, sea,
and sky formed their mighty angle, there were little dots which seemed
to indicate a city on the shore.

"St. Augustine?"

The captain shook his head. "Too near Mosquito Inlet."

And the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed. Then the oiler
rowed. It was a weary business. The human back can become the seat of
more aches and pains than are registered in books for the composite
anatomy of a regiment. It is a limited area, but it can become the
theatre of innumerable muscular conflicts, tangles, wrenches, knots, and
other comforts.

"Did you ever like to row, Billie?" asked the correspondent.

"No," said the oiler. "Hang it!"

When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place in the bottom of the
boat, he suffered a bodily depression that caused him to be careless of
everything save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea-
water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head,
pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest,
and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched
him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain
that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon
the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great soft mattress.

"Look! There's a man on the shore!"

"Where?"

"There! See 'im? See 'im?"

"Yes, sure! He's walking along."

"Now he's stopped. Look! He's facing us!"

"He's waving at us!"

"So he is! By thunder!"

"Ah, now we're all right! Now we're all right! There'll be a boat out
here for us in half-an-hour."

"He's going on. He's running. He's going up to that house there."

The remote beach seemed lower than the sea, and it required a searching
glance to discern the little black figure. The captain saw a floating
stick and they rowed to it. A bath-towel was by some weird chance in the
boat, and, tying this on the stick, the captain waved it. The oarsman
did not dare turn his head, so he was obliged to ask questions.

"What's he doing now?"

"He's standing still again. He's looking, I think.... There he goes
again. Toward the house.... Now he's stopped again."

"Is he waving at us?"

"No, not now! he was, though."

"Look! There comes another man!"

"He's running."

"Look at him go, would you."

"Why, he's on a bicycle. Now he's met the other man. They're both waving
at us. Look!"

"There comes something up the beach."

"What the devil is that thing?"

"Why it looks like a boat."

"Why, certainly it's a boat."

"No, it's on wheels."

"Yes, so it is. Well, that must be the life-boat. They drag them along
shore on a wagon."

"That's the life-boat, sure."

"No, by ----, it's--it's an omnibus."

"I tell you it's a life-boat."

"It is not! It's an omnibus. I can see it plain. See? One of these big
hotel omnibuses."

"By thunder, you're right. It's an omnibus, sure as fate. What do you
suppose they are doing with an omnibus? Maybe they are going around
collecting the life-crew, hey?"

"That's it, likely. Look! There's a fellow waving a little black flag.
He's standing on the steps of the omnibus. There come those other two
fellows. Now they're all talking together. Look at the fellow with the
flag. Maybe he ain't waving it."

"That ain't a flag, is it? That's his coat. Why, certainly, that's his
coat."

"So it is. It's his coat. He's taken it off and is waving it around his
head. But would you look at him swing it."

"Oh, say, there isn't any life-saving station there. That's just a
winter resort hotel omnibus that has brought over some of the boarders
to see us drown."

"What's that idiot with the coat mean? What's he signaling, anyhow?"

"It looks as if he were trying to tell us to go north. There must be a
life-saving station up there."

"No! He thinks we're fishing. Just giving us a merry hand. See? Ah,
there, Willie!"

"Well, I wish I could make something out of those signals. What do you
suppose he means?"

"He don't mean anything. He's just playing."

"Well, if he'd just signal us to try the surf again, or to go to sea and
wait, or go north, or go south, or go to hell--there would be some
reason in it. But look at him. He just stands there and keeps his coat
revolving like a wheel. The ass!"

"There come more people."

"Now there's quite a mob. Look! Isn't that a boat?"

"Where? Oh, I see where you mean. No, that's no boat."

"That fellow is still waving his coat."

"He must think we like to see him do that. Why don't he quit it? It
don't mean anything."

"I don't know. I think he is trying to make us go north. It must be that
there's a life-saving station there somewhere."

"Say, he ain't tired yet. Look at 'im wave."

"Wonder how long he can keep that up. He's been revolving his coat ever
since he caught sight of us. He's an idiot. Why aren't they getting men
to bring a boat out? A fishing boat--one of those big yawls--could come
out here all right. Why don't he do something?"

"Oh, it's all right, now."

"They'll have a boat out here for us in less than no time, now that
they've seen us."

A faint yellow tone came into the sky over the low land. The shadows on
the sea slowly deepened. The wind bore coldness with it, and the men
began to shiver.

"Holy smoke!" said one, allowing his voice to express his impious mood,
"if we keep on monkeying out here! If we've got to flounder out here all
night!"

"Oh, we'll never have to stay here all night! Don't you worry. They've
seen us now, and it won't be long before they'll come chasing out after
us."

The shore grew dusky. The man waving a coat blended gradually into this
gloom, and it swallowed in the same manner the omnibus and the group of
people. The spray, when it dashed uproariously over the side, made the
voyagers shrink and swear like men who were being branded.

"I'd like to catch the chump who waved the coat. I feel like soaking him
one, just for luck."

"Why? What did he do?"

"Oh, nothing, but then he seemed so damned cheerful."

In the meantime the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed, and
then the oiler rowed. Grey-faced and bowed forward, they mechanically,
turn by turn, plied the leaden oars. The form of the lighthouse had
vanished from the southern horizon, but finally a pale star appeared,
just lifting from the sea. The streaked saffron in the west passed
before the all-merging darkness, and the sea to the east was black. The
land had vanished, and was expressed only by the low and drear thunder
of the surf.

"If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going
to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I
brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to
nibble the sacred cheese of life?"

The patient captain, drooped over the water-jar, was sometimes obliged
to speak to the oarsman.

"Keep her head up! Keep her head up!"

"'Keep her head up,' sir." The voices were weary and low.

This was surely a quiet evening. All save the oarsman lay heavily and
listlessly in the boat's bottom. As for him, his eyes were just capable
of noting the tall black waves that swept forward in a most sinister
silence, save for an occasional subdued growl of a crest.

The cook's head was on a thwart, and he looked without interest at the
water under his nose. He was deep in other scenes. Finally he spoke.
"Billie," he murmured, dreamfully, "what kind of pie do you like best?"


V.

"Pie," said the oiler and the correspondent, agitatedly. "Don't talk
about those things, blast you!"

"Well," said the cook, "I was just thinking about ham sandwiches, and--"

A night on the sea in an open boat is a long night. As darkness settled
finally, the shine of the light, lifting from the sea in the south,
changed to full gold. On the northern horizon a new light appeared, a
small bluish gleam on the edge of the waters. These two lights were the
furniture of the world. Otherwise there was nothing but waves.

Two men huddled in the stern, and distances were so magnificent in the
dingey that the rower was enabled to keep his feet partly warmed by
thrusting them under his companions. Their legs indeed extended far
under the rowing-seat until they touched the feet of the captain
forward. Sometimes, despite the efforts of the tired oarsman, a wave
came piling into the boat, an icy wave of the night, and the chilling
water soaked them anew. They would twist their bodies for a moment and
groan, and sleep the dead sleep once more, while the water in the boat
gurgled about them as the craft rocked.

The plan of the oiler and the correspondent was for one to row until he
lost the ability, and then arouse the other from his sea-water couch in
the bottom of the boat.

The oiler plied the oars until his head drooped forward, and the
overpowering sleep blinded him. And he rowed yet afterward. Then he
touched a man in the bottom of the boat, and called his name. "Will you
spell me for a little while?" he said, meekly.

"Sure, Billie," said the correspondent, awakening and dragging himself
to a sitting position. They exchanged places carefully, and the oiler,
cuddling down in the sea-water at the cook's side, seemed to go to sleep
instantly.

The particular violence of the sea had ceased. The waves came without
snarling. The obligation of the man at the oars was to keep the boat
headed so that the tilt of the rollers would not capsize her, and to
preserve her from filling when the crests rushed past. The black waves
were silent and hard to be seen in the darkness. Often one was almost
upon the boat before the oarsman was aware.

In a low voice the correspondent addressed the captain. He was not sure
that the captain was awake, although this iron man seemed to be always
awake. "Captain, shall I keep her making for that light north, sir?"

The same steady voice answered him. "Yes. Keep it about two points off
the port bow."

The cook had tied a life-belt around himself in order to get even the
warmth which this clumsy cork contrivance could donate, and he seemed
almost stove-like when a rower, whose teeth invariably chattered wildly
as soon as he ceased his labor, dropped down to sleep.

The correspondent, as he rowed, looked down at the two men sleeping
under-foot. The cook's arm was around the oiler's shoulders, and, with
their fragmentary clothing and haggard faces, they were the babes of the
sea, a grotesque rendering of the old babes in the wood.

Later he must have grown stupid at his work, for suddenly there was a
growling of water, and a crest came with a roar and a swash into the
boat, and it was a wonder that it did not set the cook afloat in his
life-belt. The cook continued to sleep, but the oiler sat up, blinking
his eyes and shaking with the new cold.

"Oh, I'm awful sorry, Billie," said the correspondent contritely.

"That's all right, old boy," said the oiler, and lay down again and was
asleep.

Presently it seemed that even the captain dozed, and the correspondent
thought that he was the one man afloat on all the oceans. The wind had a
voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end.

There was a long, loud swishing astern of the boat, and a gleaming trail
of phosphorescence, like blue flame, was furrowed on the black waters.
It might have been made by a monstrous knife.

Then there came a stillness, while the correspondent breathed with the
open mouth and looked at the sea.

Suddenly there was another swish and another long flash of bluish light,
and this time it was alongside the boat, and might almost have been
reached with an oar. The correspondent saw an enormous fin speed like a
shadow through the water, hurling the crystalline spray and leaving the
long glowing trail.

The correspondent looked over his shoulder at the captain. His face was
hidden, and he seemed to be asleep. He looked at the babes of the sea.
They certainly were asleep. So, being bereft of sympathy, he leaned a
little way to one side and swore softly into the sea.

But the thing did not then leave the vicinity of the boat. Ahead or
astern, on one side or the other, at intervals long or short, fled the
long sparkling streak, and there was to be heard the whirroo of the dark
fin. The speed and power of the thing was greatly to be admired. It cut
the water like a gigantic and keen projectile.

The presence of this biding thing did not affect the man with the same
horror that it would if he had been a picnicker. He simply looked at the
sea dully and swore in an undertone.

Nevertheless, it is true that he did not wish to be alone. He wished one
of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it. But
the captain hung motionless over the water-jar, and the oiler and the
cook in the bottom of the boat were plunged in slumber.


VI.

"If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going
to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?"

During this dismal night, it may be remarked that a man would conclude
that it was really the intention of the seven mad gods to drown him,
despite the abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly an
abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so hard. The
man felt it would be a crime most unnatural. Other people had drowned at
sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but still--

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important,
and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him,
he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply
the fact that there are no brick and no temples. Any visible expression
of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.

Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the
desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one
knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself."

A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he feels that she says
to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation.

The men in the dingey had not discussed these matters, but each had, no
doubt, reflected upon them in silence and according to his mind. There
was seldom any expression upon their faces save the general one of
complete weariness. Speech was devoted to the business of the boat.

To chime the notes of his emotion, a verse mysteriously entered the
correspondent's head. He had even forgotten that he had forgotten this
verse, but it suddenly was in his mind.

"A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
There was a lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of
woman's tears;
But a comrade stood beside him, and he took that comrade's hand,
And he said: 'I shall never see my own, my native land.'"

In his childhood, the correspondent had been made acquainted with the
fact that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, but he had never
regarded the fact as important. Myriads of his school-fellows had
informed him of the soldier's plight, but the dinning had naturally
ended by making him perfectly indifferent. He had never considered it
his affair that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had it
appeared to him as a matter for sorrow. It was less to him than the
breaking of a pencil's point.

Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human, living thing. It was
no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a poet,
meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; it was an
actuality--stern, mournful, and fine.

The correspondent plainly saw the soldier. He lay on the sand with his
feet out straight and still. While his pale left hand was upon his chest
in an attempt to thwart the going of his life, the blood came between
his fingers. In the far Algerian distance, a city of low square forms
was set against a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues. The
correspondent, plying the oars and dreaming of the slow and slower
movements of the lips of the soldier, was moved by a profound and
perfectly impersonal comprehension. He was sorry for the soldier of the
Legion who lay dying in Algiers.

The thing which had followed the boat and waited, had evidently grown
bored at the delay. There was no longer to be heard the slash of the
cut-water, and there was no longer the flame of the long trail. The
light in the north still glimmered, but it was apparently no nearer to
the boat. Sometimes the boom of the surf rang in the correspondent's
ears, and he turned the craft seaward then and rowed harder. Southward,
some one had evidently built a watch-fire on the beach. It was too low
and too far to be seen, but it made a shimmering, roseate reflection
upon the bluff back of it, and this could be discerned from the boat.
The wind came stronger, and sometimes a wave suddenly raged out like a
mountain-cat, and there was to be seen the sheen and sparkle of a broken
crest.

The captain, in the bow, moved on his water-jar and sat erect. "Pretty
long night," he observed to the correspondent. He looked at the shore.
"Those life-saving people take their time."

"Did you see that shark playing around?"

"Yes, I saw him. He was a big fellow, all right."

"Wish I had known you were awake."

Later the correspondent spoke into the bottom of the boat.

"Billie!" There was a slow and gradual disentanglement. "Billie, will
you spell me?"

"Sure," said the oiler.

As soon as the correspondent touched the cold comfortable sea-water in
the bottom of the boat, and had huddled close to the cook's life-belt he
was deep in sleep, despite the fact that his teeth played all the
popular airs. This sleep was so good to him that it was but a moment
before he heard a voice call his name in a tone that demonstrated the
last stages of exhaustion. "Will you spell me?"

"Sure, Billie."

The light in the north had mysteriously vanished, but the correspondent
took his course from the wide-awake captain.

Later in the night they took the boat farther out to sea, and the
captain directed the cook to take one oar at the stern and keep the boat
facing the seas. He was to call out if he should hear the thunder of the
surf. This plan enabled the oiler and the correspondent to get respite
together. "We'll give those boys a chance to get into shape again," said
the captain. They curled down and, after a few preliminary chatterings
and trembles, slept once more the dead sleep. Neither knew they had
bequeathed to the cook the company of another shark, or perhaps the same
shark.

As the boat caroused on the waves, spray occasionally bumped over the
side and gave them a fresh soaking, but this had no power to break their
repose. The ominous slash of the wind and the water affected them as it
would have affected mummies.

"Boys," said the cook, with the notes of every reluctance in his voice,
"she's drifted in pretty close. I guess one of you had better take her
to sea again." The correspondent, aroused, heard the crash of the
toppled crests.

As he was rowing, the captain gave him some whisky-and-water, and this
steadied the chills out of him. "If I ever get ashore and anybody shows
me even a photograph of an oar--"

At last there was a short conversation.

"Billie.... Billie, will you spell me?"

"Sure," said the oiler.


VII.

When the correspondent again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky were
each of the grey hue of the dawning. Later, carmine and gold was painted
upon the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its splendor, with a
sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of the waves.

On the distant dunes were set many little black cottages, and a tall
white windmill reared above them. No man, nor dog, nor bicycle appeared
on the beach. The cottages might have formed a deserted village.

The voyagers scanned the shore. A conference was held in the boat.
"Well," said the captain, "if no help is coming we might better try a
run through the surf right away. If we stay out here much longer we will
be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all." The others silently
acquiesced in this reasoning. The boat was headed for the beach. The
correspondent wondered if none ever ascended the tall wind-tower, and if
then they never looked seaward. This tower was a giant, standing with
its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the
correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the
individual--nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did
not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise.
But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent. It is, perhaps, plausible
that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the
universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life, and have them
taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance. A distinction
between right and wrong seems absurdly clear to him, then, in this new
ignorance of the grave-edge, and he understands that if he were given
another opportunity he would mend his conduct and his words, and be
better and brighter during an introduction or at a tea.

"Now, boys," said the captain, "she is going to swamp, sure. All we can
do is to work her in as far as possible, and then when she swamps, pile
out and scramble for the beach. Keep cool now, and don't jump until she
swamps sure."

The oiler took the oars. Over his shoulders he scanned the surf.
"Captain," he said, "I think I'd better bring her about, and keep her
head-on to the seas and back her in."

"All right, Billie," said the captain. "Back her in." The oiler swung
the boat then and, seated in the stern, the cook and the correspondent
were obliged to look over their shoulders to contemplate the lonely and
indifferent shore.

The monstrous in-shore rollers heaved the boat high until the men were
again enabled to see the white sheets of water scudding up the slanted
beach. "We won't get in very close," said the captain. Each time a man
could wrest his attention from the rollers, he turned his glance toward
the shore, and in the expression of the eyes during this contemplation
there was a singular quality. The correspondent, observing the others,
knew that they were not afraid, but the full meaning of their glances
was shrouded.

As for himself, he was too tired to grapple fundamentally with the fact.
He tried to coerce his mind into thinking of it, but the mind was
dominated at this time by the muscles, and the muscles said they did not
care. It merely occurred to him that if he should drown it would be a
shame.

There were no hurried words, no pallor, no plain agitation. The men
simply looked at the shore. "Now, remember to get well clear of the boat
when you jump," said the captain.

Seaward the crest of a roller suddenly fell with a thunderous crash, and
the long white comber came roaring down upon the boat.

"Steady now," said the captain. The men were silent. They turned their
eyes from the shore to the comber and waited. The boat slid up the
incline, leaped at the furious top, bounced over it, and swung down the
long back of the wave. Some water had been shipped and the cook bailed
it out.

But the next crest crashed also. The tumbling, boiling flood of white
water caught the boat and whirled it almost perpendicular. Water swarmed
in from all sides. The correspondent had his hands on the gunwale at
this time, and when the water entered at that place he swiftly withdrew
his fingers, as if he objected to wetting them.

The little boat, drunken with this weight of water, reeled and snuggled
deeper into the sea.

"Bail her out, cook! Bail her out," said the captain.

"All right, captain," said the cook.

"Now, boys, the next one will do for us, sure," said the oiler. "Mind to
jump clear of the boat."

The third wave moved forward, huge, furious, implacable. It fairly
swallowed the dingey, and almost simultaneously the men tumbled into the
sea. A piece of lifebelt had lain in the bottom of the boat, and as the
correspondent went overboard he held this to his chest with his left
hand.

The January water was icy, and he reflected immediately that it was
colder than he had expected to find it on the coast of Florida. This
appeared to his dazed mind as a fact important enough to be noted at the
time. The coldness of the water was sad; it was tragic. This fact was
somehow so mixed and confused with his opinion of his own situation that
it seemed almost a proper reason for tears. The water was cold.

When he came to the surface he was conscious of little but the noisy
water. Afterward he saw his companions in the sea. The oiler was ahead
in the race. He was swimming strongly and rapidly. Off to the
correspondent's left, the cook's great white and corked back bulged out
of the water, and in the rear the captain was hanging with his one good
hand to the keel of the overturned dingey.

There is a certain immovable quality to a shore, and the correspondent
wondered at it amid the confusion of the sea.

It seemed also very attractive, but the correspondent knew that it was a
long journey, and he paddled leisurely. The piece of life-preserver lay
under him, and sometimes he whirled down the incline of a wave as if he
were on a handsled.

But finally he arrived at a place in the sea where travel was beset
with difficulty. He did not pause swimming to inquire what manner of
current had caught him, but there his progress ceased. The shore was set
before him like a bit of scenery on a stage, and he looked at it and
understood with his eyes each detail of it.

As the cook passed, much farther to the left, the captain was calling to
him, "Turn over on your back, cook! Turn over on your back and use the
oar."

"All right, sir." The cook turned on his back, and, paddling with an
oar, went ahead as if he were a canoe.

Presently the boat also passed to the left of the correspondent with the
captain clinging with one hand to the keel. He would have appeared like
a man raising himself to look over a board fence, if it were not for the
extraordinary gymnastics of the boat. The correspondent marvelled that
the captain could still hold to it.

They passed on, nearer to shore--the oiler, the cook, the captain--and
following them went the water-jar, bouncing gaily over the seas.

The correspondent remained in the grip of this strange new enemy--a
current. The shore, with its white slope of sand and its green bluff,
topped with little silent cottages, was spread like a picture before
him. It was very near to him then, but he was impressed as one who in a
gallery looks at a scene from Brittany or Holland.

He thought: "I am going to drown? Can it be possible Can it be possible?
Can it be possible?" Perhaps an individual must consider his own death
to be the final phenomenon of nature.

But later a wave perhaps whirled him out of this small, deadly current,
for he found suddenly that he could again make progress toward the
shore. Later still, he was aware that the captain, clinging with one
hand to the keel of the dingey, had his face turned away from the shore
and toward him, and was calling his name. "Come to the boat! Come to the
boat!"

In his struggle to reach the captain and the boat, he reflected that
when one gets properly wearied, drowning must really be a comfortable
arrangement, a cessation of hostilities accompanied by a large degree of
relief, and he was glad of it, for the main thing in his mind for some
months had been horror of the temporary agony. He did not wish to be
hurt.

Presently he saw a man running along the shore. He was undressing with
most remarkable speed. Coat, trousers, shirt, everything flew magically
off him.

"Come to the boat," called the captain.

"All right, captain." As the correspondent paddled, he saw the captain
let himself down to bottom and leave the boat. Then the correspondent
performed his one little marvel of the voyage. A large wave caught him
and flung him with ease and supreme speed completely over the boat and
far beyond it. It struck him even then as an event in gymnastics, and a
true miracle of the sea. An over-turned boat in the surf is not a
plaything to a swimming man.

The correspondent arrived in water that reached only to his waist, but
his condition did not enable him to stand for more than a moment. Each
wave knocked him into a heap, and the under-tow pulled at him.

Then he saw the man who had been running and undressing, and undressing
and running, come bounding into the water. He dragged ashore the cook,
and then waded towards the captain, but the captain waved him away, and
sent him to the correspondent. He was naked, naked as a tree in winter,
but a halo was about his head, and he shone like a saint. He gave a
strong pull, and a long drag, and a bully heave at the correspondent's
hand. The correspondent, schooled in the minor formulae, said: "Thanks,
old man." But suddenly the man cried: "What's that?" He pointed a swift
finger. The correspondent said: "Go."

In the shallows, face downward, lay the oiler. His forehead touched sand
that was periodically, between each wave, clear of the sea.

The correspondent did not know all that transpired afterward. When he
achieved safe ground he fell, striking the sand with each particular
part of his body. It was as if he had dropped from a roof, but the thud
was grateful to him.

It seems that instantly the beach was populated with men with blankets,
clothes, and flasks, and women with coffeepots and all the remedies
sacred to their minds. The welcome of the land to the men from the sea
was warm and generous, but a still and dripping shape was carried slowly
up the beach, and the land's welcome for it could only be the different
and sinister hospitality of the grave.

When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight,
and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on
shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.