sopped head, like a turtle,
breathless. Uncle William, bent far to the right, gazed to the east.
Slowly his face lightened. He drew his big hand down its length, mopping
off the wet. "There she is!" he said in a deep voice. "Let her out,
Andy."

With stiff fingers, Andrew reached to the sail, untying a second reef
and loosing it to the wind.

The water still tossed in tumbling waves and the fitful rain blew past.
But the force of the storm was gone. Away to the north it towered,
monstrous and black.

With his eyes strained to the east, Uncle William held the tiller.
"We'll make it, Andy," he said quietly. "We'll make it yet if the
_Jennie_ holds out--" Suddenly he stood upright, his hand on the tiller,
his eyes glued fast.

"Luff her," he cried. "She's gone--Luff her, I tell you!" He sprang
back, jamming the tiller from him. "Let her out, Andy, every inch!"

The canvas flew wide to the wind. The great boat responded to its touch.
She rose like a bird and dipped, in sweeping sidewise flight, to the
race.

Across the water something bobbed--black, uncertain.

"Look sharp, Andy," said Uncle William.

Andrew peered with blinking eyes across the waste. The spirit of the
chase was on him. His indifference had washed from him, like a husk,
in that center of terror. His eyes leaped to the mass and glowed on it.
"Yep," he said solemnly, "he's held on--he's there!"

"Keep your eye on her, Andy. Don't lose her." Uncle William's big arms
strained to the wind, forcing the great bird in her course. Nearer
she came and nearer, circling with white wings that opened and closed
silently, softly. Close to the bobbing boat she grazed, hung poised a
moment, and swept away with swift stroke.

The artist had swung through the air at the end of a huge arm. As he
looked up from the bottom of the boat where he lay, the old man's head,
round and smooth, like a boulder, stood out against the black above
him. It grew and expanded and filled the horizon--thick and nebulous and
dizzy.

"Roll him over, Andy," said Uncle William, "roll him over. He's shipped
too much."

V

Uncle William sat on the beach mending his nets. He drew the twine
deftly in and out, squinting now and then across the harbor at a line of
smoke that dwindled into the sky. Each time he looked it was fainter on
the horizon. He whistled a little as he bent to his work.

Over the rocks Andrew appeared, bearing on his back a huge bundle of
nets. He threw it o