Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/86



ES, yes," said Mr. Barcus indulgently.

"Very interesting. Very interesting indeed. I've seldom listened to a more interesting life-history, my poor young friend. But I don't believe one word of it. It's all damn foolishness! Particularly this! The rest of your adventures are reasonable enough. They won my credulity—and I'm a native son of Missouri. But this last chapter is impossible. And that's flat. It couldn't happen—and has. And there we are!"

Against the western horizon a strip of sand dunes rested like a bar between the sunset in the sky and the ensanguined sea that mirrored it.

The wind had gone down with the sun, leaving the Seaventure becalmed—her motor long since inert for want of fuel—a mile or so off Nauset Beach.

Farther offshore, the so-called Gloucester fisherman rode, without motion, waters still and glassy. Figures might be seen moving about her decks; and soon she lowered a small boat. A little later a faint humming noise drifted across the tide. 64