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282 office, cursed it for being twenty miles away, bought a pint of whiskey, and drove off with Sam Tipton's boy in a pung. The two sailors who had rowed him were of the city-bred type, and remained unsociable even after rounds of drink. "Yes, he's mate o' the Amirald," they said gruffly. "An' a bum one, too. An' she wants a tow, an' he's gone to telegraph up river for a tug, an' by God, that's all you Reubens pumps out o' us. Hey, whiskers?"

When nine o'clock passed, and no captain came to supper, Joyce began an anxious expedition. A piercing sea wind, in sudden, wrestling gusts, filled her cloak, raged at her skirts, checked her as though against the bellying of an invisible sail; then dropped, was gone, and left all things without breath or movement, except the high stars racing through rifts into blackness. In such pauses she caught now and then a hoarse bellow, a deep, throbbing bass note in the distance.

In the pathway of light from a window she met the captain, marching with head erect and face radiant.