ea thundered on. The fire
cast a little pathway of light through the darkness, down to the sea's
edge, and they could see its waves all beaten to foam as white as
milk, flecking the sand in great patches. It was an awful waiting.

By and by Hagar came down along the sand in a great hood-cloak that
gave her a most weird and witchlike appearance. The fishermen looked
at her with startled, suspicious eyes as the bent old figure suddenly
emerged from the darkness into the full glare of the firelight. The
old negress passed on to where Trafford was standing.

"I's here, Mas'r Dick," she said, touching his arm, as if fain to
assure him of her presence and sympathy.

He did not repel her, but said, with much of kindness in his tone,
"This is no place for you, Hagar."

"De Lord's here," said Hagar, quietly, "an' I's gwine ter stay. I
isn't feared, Mas'r Dick."

Trafford looked in her wrinkled, time-worn old face yearningly. This
black, ignorant old woman had something within her heart that gave her
a peace and serenity in this fearful hour that he envied. He felt the
truth of this as he had never felt it before. She was stayed and
upheld by some invisible hand. Somehow, in her humble life, this old
negress had found some great truth which all his own study and
research had failed to teach him. He turned about and made her a seat
of boards on an old spar which lay on the sand, under the shelter of
the rock by the fire.

"T'ank ye, Mas'r Dick," said Hagar, tremulously, as she sat down. This
unusual kindness touched her. It was like his old-time thoughtfulness
and gentleness, when he was her own blithe, merry schoolboy, she
thought.

The rain began to fall less heavily. Only now and then a great drop
fell with a hiss and sputter into the fire; but the wind grew fiercer
as the evening waned, and the thunder and pounding of the sea was
deafening. The spray dashed higher and higher, quite up to the backs
of the men who huddled about the fire, and its fine mist sifted even
into Hagar's face and grizzled locks.

"'Tain't nuffin tu what dat bressed boy is suff'rin'," she sighed,
wiping the cold drops off her cheeks; "'pears as ef dis ole heart 'ud
split'n two, thinkin' ob it. O good Lord, bress de chile!--bress
him,--bress him!--dat's all Hagar ken say."

It was a weary watching. As the war of the sea grew louder and the
wind fiercer, the Culm fishermen gathered into a yet closer group, and
looked with awed