Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 6 (1927-12).djvu/49

 speaking, and I thought he had finished, and started some remark about it, but he interrupted me; and whereas his speech before had been controlled, he now surprized me with a vehemence I did not look for in the quiet-natured little man.

"You see now?" He leaned forward and his face worked convulsively. "You see? Each time to save me! Each time it was the wind which saved me! And my life-work was the study of the wind. There could be but one conclusion. I am to make great discoveries in meteorological science, and the elements themselves will protect my life until I have accomplished my work. It must be a great work, to interest nature herself to set aside her laws in my favor. No other man has had that done for him!"

"That is a most fascinating thought," I put in, but he waved me into quietude as he continued.

"But the last time! God!—there, you will forgive me if I seem to blaspheme—if I had my way I'd damn it all for the mockery it is. But I can't! I can't! My God! I'm helpless, just an instrument denied its own life, its own happiness!

"Soon after that second time of which I spoke, I met a girl. You can guess what happened. Temporarily—I told myself it would be only temporarily—my scientific interests were forced into second place, a second place so far out of mind as to be almost nonexistent. For I had already achieved a position in the world. I had already done work which many could not equal in a lifetime, and if I had found the new interest of a real love which should drive that other interest from my heart, well, I could afford to, very well.

"So we were married, and on our wedding trip went down along the coast of South America, down the west side, intending to return up the other side. But we never reached it.

"My God, Fritwell!" the tears stood in his eyes as he turned to me, although his voice did not reach; "Fritwell, I can never forget that night. And that is the reason that in all the years since then I have never been able to concentrate on the work I must do before I am allowed to die. But tomorrow I think I will manage to start again.

"But that night! It was a perfect evening of the Chilean summer, and the soft chords of thrumming Spanish melodies floated over the ship as we sat about or paraded the decks. Inside of the dancing salon there was the gleam of eager faces, alight with color and animation as the dancers swung to the orchestra's strains. We had danced, and were outside, looking over the water, with the stars shining down on us from above and reflected back at us by the smooth black water. We talked low, listening at the same time to each other's voices and to the waltz—it was Sobre las Olas, the prettiest piece in the world when a Spanish orchestra plays it over Spanish waters on a summer evening. If there was trouble in the world, we had forgotten it. There was nothing on the boat save joyousness and youth and love.

"We were planning. They always plan on their honeymoon, if it is the real thing. And we were planning softly together, and I was drinking in the musical sound of her voice, more wrapt up in it than in the meaning of her words, when it struck!

"It struck, damn it! It struck! And she knew what it meant to do. For, as all the world seemed to be whirling in the one tremendous swoop of the wind, literally tearing the ship and the sea to pieces and mixing them until only God himself could tell which was sea and which was ship, I tried to clutch her to me. But she struggled to break away, and through