mother----?"

"Know I'm out? She doth. First time I've been out o' bed this late in
all my long and checkered career."

"If she does, Miss Ramsey, will you go up to the pilot once more and
tell him to land the boat at the wood-yard just this side of Bonnabel
plantation?"

Her mouth fell open: "Who, me? Tell the--?" She swept the strategist
with a quick, hurt glance, but beamed again beneath his kind eyes. "_I
get your idea_," she said, snatched the nurse's arm, and hurried off
with her, humming and tripping the song she had quoted.

The captain looked again into "infinite space." The wide scene was
shifting. High beyond the _Votaress's_ bow the stars of the west swung
as if they shifted southward. The moon crossed her silvering wake from
larboard quarter to starboard. The _Antelope_ shone close ahead. "To me,
Hugh," he lightly resumed, "this boat, full of all sorts of people,
isn't so much like your swarm of stars as it is like just one little
whole world."

"Yes," said the son, facing him sidewise so that no Ramsey might again
surprise them: "I see it that way too. Father"--the father had stirred
as if to leave him--"I want to tell you some things about our past. But
I can't tell them piecemeal. I must find some time when you're off
watch."

"And when Miss Ramsey's asleep?"

"Yes."

"Why have you never told me before?"

"I've tried for years. The power wasn't in me. I've had to grow up to
it. But, as you say, 'now, at last,' I can do it."

The captain turned away and looked up to the dim pilot-house. Out of it
came the tranquil voice of the pilot who earlier had talked with the
twins: "Caving bank above has planted snags at that wood-yard, sir.
Whippoorwill Ferry's a better landing, on t'other side, head o' the
crossing."

"Well, Mr. Watson, land there."

The boat was sweeping close by the west-shore village of Bayagoula, that
lay asleep where the stream for a brief space widened to a mile. Her
veering jack-staff hid the north star a moment, then crept to right of
it and pointed up a five-mile reach of dim waters and dimmer shores,
hard on the heels of the panting _Antelope._ But the captain's eye
lingered behind and above him. Between him and the pilot-house, softly
veiled by its moonlight shadow, stood in unconscious statuesqueness on
the front overhang of the texas roof, between the towering chimneys,
Ramsey.

Her rippling curls and slim shoulders stood above the shade that
enveloped the rest of