Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/90

68 The sea-pull drew them side by side, gunnel to gunnel laid,

And they felt the sheerstrakes pound and clear, but never a word was said.

Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his spirit passed:

'Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in the dark at last?

'Curse on her work that has nipped me here with a shifty trick unkind—

'I have gotten my death where I got my bread, but I dare not face it blind.

'Curse on the fog! Is there never a wind of all the winds I knew

'To clear the smother from off my chest, and let me look at the blue?'

The good fog heard—like a splitten sail, to left and right she tore,

And they saw the sun-dogs in the haze and the seal upon the shore.

Silver and grey ran spit and bay to meet the steel-backed tide,