his anxious conviction of Elizabeth
Luke's need confirmed by his imagination.

When Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl came to the crest of Black Cliff, a
drizzle of rain was falling in advance of the fog. The wind was
clipping past in soggy gusts that rose at intervals to the screaming
pitch of a squall. A drab mist had crept around Point-o'-Bay and was
spreading over the ice in Scalawag Run. Presently it would lie thick
between Scalawag Island and the mainland of Point-o'-Bay Cove.

At the edge of the ice, where the free black water of the open met the
huddled floe, the sea was breaking. There was a tossing line of white
water--the crests of the breakers flying away in spindrift like long
white manes in the wind. Even from the crest of Black Cliff, lifted
high above the ice and water of the gray prospect below, it was plain
that a stupendous sea was running in from the darkening open,
slipping under the floe, swelling through the run, and subsiding in
the farthest reaches of the bay.

From the broken rock of Black Cliff to the coast of Scalawag Run, two
miles beyond, where Scalawag Harbor threatened to fade and vanish in
the fog and falling dusk, the ice was in motion, great pans of the
pack tossing like chips in the gigantic waves. Nowhere was the ice at
rest. It was neither heavy enough nor yet sufficiently close packed to
flatten the sea with its weight. And a survey of the creeping fog and
the ominous approach of a windy night portended that no more than an
hour of drab light was left for the passage.

"'Tis a perilous task t' try," said Tommy Lark. "I never faced such a
task afore. I fears for my life."

"'Tis a madcap thing t' try!"

"Ay, a madcap thing. A man will need madman's luck t' come through
with his life."

"Pans as steep as a roof out there!"

"Slippery as butter, Sandy. 'Twill be ticklish labor t' cling t' some
o' them when the sea cants them high. I wish we had learned t' swim,
Sandy, when we was idle lads t'gether. We'll sink like two jiggers if
we slips into the water. Is you comin' along, Sandy? It takes but one
man t' bear a message. I'll not need you."

"Tommy," Sandy besought, "will you not listen t' reason an' wisdom?"

"What wisdom, Sandy?"

"Lave us tear open the telegram an' read it."

"Hoosh!" Tommy ejaculated. "Such a naughty trick as that! I'll not do
it. I jus' couldn't."

"'Tis a naughty trick that will save us a pother o' trouble."

"I'm not chary o' trouble in the maid's be