ue spray. "It's a
rock," he added. He stopped the run momentarily; the rod bent
perilously double, but the fish halted. Woolfolk reeled in smoothly,
but another rush followed, as strong as the first. A long, equal
struggle ensued, the thin line was drawn as rigid as metal, the rod
quivered and arched. Once the rockfish was close enough to be
clearly distinguishable--strongly built, heavy-shouldered, with
black stripes drawn from gills to tail. But he was off again with
a short, blundering rush.

"If you will hold the rod," Woolfolk directed his companion, "I'll
gaff him." She took the rod while he bent over the wharf's side. The
fish, on the surface of the water, half turned; and, striking the gaff
through a gill, Woolfolk swung him up on the boarding.

"There," he pronounced, "are several dinners. I'll carry him to your
kitchen."

"Nicholas would do it, but he's away," she told him; "and my father is
not strong enough. That's a leviathan."

John Woolfolk placed a handle through the rockfish's gills, and,
carrying it with an obvious effort, he followed her over a narrow,
trampled path through the rasped palmettos. They approached the
dwelling from behind the orange grove; and, coming suddenly to the
porch, surprised an incredibly thin, grey man in the act of lighting a
small stone pipe with a reed stem. He was sitting, but, seeing
Woolfolk, he started sharply to his feet, and the pipe fell,
shattering the bowl.

"My father," the woman pronounced: "Lichfield Stope."

"Millie," he stuttered painfully, "you know--I--strangers--"

John Woolfolk thought, as he presented himself, that he had never
before seen such an immaterial living figure. Lichfield Stope was like
the shadow of a man draped with unsubstantial, dusty linen. Into his
waxen face beat a pale infusion of blood, as if a diluted wine had
been poured into a semi-opaque goblet; his sunken lips puffed out and
collapsed; his fingers, dust-colored like his garb, opened and shut
with a rapid, mechanical rigidity.

"Father," Millie Stope remonstrated, "you must manage yourself better.
You know I wouldn't bring any one to the house who would hurt us. And
see--we are fetching you a splendid rockfish."

The older man made a convulsive effort to regain his composure.

"Ah, yes," he muttered; "just so."

The flush receded from his indeterminate countenance. Woolfolk saw
that he had a goatee laid like a wasted yellow finger on his chin, and
that his hands hung