Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/63

Rh her timbers, then ran like a racehorse feeling whip and spur for the first time. The steersman spun his wheel, and the bark swung into head-seas, then pitched and tossed sickeningly, each mountainous wave hitting her slender ribs like a mighty triphammer fist in cruel infighting.

"A uv a night," growled a hand as eight bells clanged again through the darkness, then to the slickered figure beside him:

"Say, matey, how'd the little house on Preble Square look t'ye now?"

"'Tain't a fair question, it's crool—I'm afeared—" the words were lost in the wind and flying spate—"Never again"

"It's the black cat that done it, dang 'er," and simultaneously they reached into hip-pockets for the old consoler, when a moving mountain of foam swept across the deck, tossing them against the knightheads, and carrying the brown treasures away.

"Dod gast that black cat!" cried the less blasphemous one as they picked themselves up from the scuppers, "we ain't had no luck since we found 'er a-clawin the corp."

In a slight lull following midnight, Ben went below to the cabin where the cook brought as much of a can of coffee as he had been able to salvage in the rocking trip from the galley.

The mate stood a moment, dripping rivulets on the swaying floor, the mug of steaming liquid half way to his lips, but drinking in surer sustenance from a little picture frame. She had smuggled it in her blue dress to the Light, that night