第68章

"The main thing," he said, "is to keep her on an even keel. If she teeters to one side, you teeter to t'other. Drat that fox!" he ejaculated. "I thought when Web's place burned we'd had fire enough to last for one spell, but it never rains but it pours.""Oh, dear!" sobbed the lady. "Now everything 'll burn up, and they'll blame me for it. Well, I'll be drownded anyway, so Ishan't be there to hear 'em. Oh, dear! dear!""Oh, don't talk that way. We're driftin' somewheres, but we're spinnin' 'round so I can't tell which way. Judas!" he exclaimed, more soberly, "I remember, now; it ain't but a little past seven o'clock, and the tide's goin' out.""Of course it is," resignedly, "and we'll drift into the breakers in the bay, and that 'll be the end.""No, no, I guess not. We ain't dead yit. If I had an oar or somethin' to steer this clipper with, maybe we could git into shoal water. As 'tis, we'll have to manage her the way Ote Wixon used to manage his wife, by lettin' her have her own way."They floated in silence for a few moments. Then Miss Patience, who had bravely tried to stifle her sobs, said with chattering teeth, "Perez, I'm pretty nigh froze to death."It will be remembered that the Captain had spoken of the weather as being almost as warm as summer. This was a slight exaggeration.

It happened, fortunately for the castaways, that this particular night, coming as it did just at the end of the long thaw, was the mildest of the winter and there was no wind, but the air was chill, and the damp fog raw and biting.

"Well, now you mention it," said Captain Perez, "it IS cold, ain't it? I've a good mind to jump overboard, and try to swim ashore and tow the carryall.""Don't you DO it! My land! if YOU should drown what would become of ME?"It was the tone of this speech, as much as the words, that hit the Captain hard. He himself almost sobbed as he said:

"Pashy, I want you to try to git over on this front seat with me.

Then I can put my coat 'round you, and you won't be so cold. Take hold of my hand."Miss Patience at first protested that she never could do it in the world, the carriage would upset, and that would be the end. But her companion urged her to try, and at last she did so. It was a risky proceeding, but she reached the front seat somehow, and the carryall still remained right-side-up. Luckily, in the channel between the beaches there was not the slightest semblance of a wave.

Captain Perez pulled off his coat, and wrapped it about his protesting companion. He was obliged to hold it in place, and he found the task rather pleasing.

"Oh, you're SO good!" murmured Miss Patience. "What should I have done without you?""Hush! Guess you'd have been better off. You'd never gone after that fox if it hadn't been for me, and there wouldn't have been none of this fuss.""Oh, don't say that! You've been so brave. Anyhow, we'll die together, that's a comfort.""Pashy," said Captain Perez solemnly, "it's mighty good to hear you say that."It is, perhaps, needless to explain that the "dying" portion of the lady's speech was not that referred to by the Captain; the word "together" was what appealed to him. Miss Patience apparently understood.

"Is it?" she said softly.

"Yes--yes, 'tis." The arm holding the coat about the lady's shoulder tightened just a little. The Captain had often dreamed of something like this, but never with quite these surroundings.

However, he was rapidly becoming oblivious to such trivial details as surroundings.

"Pashy," he said huskily, "I've been thinkin' of you consider'ble lately. Fact is, I--I--well, I come down to-day a-purpose to ask you somethin'. I know it's a queer place to ask it, and--and Is'pose it's kind of sudden, but--will--will you-- Breakers! by mighty!"The carryall had suddenly begun to rock, and there were streaks of foam about it. Now, it gave a most alarming heave, grounded, swung clear, and tipped yet more.

"We're capsizin'," yelled Perez. "Hang on to me, Pashy!"But Miss Patience didn't intend to let this, perhaps the final opportunity, slip. As she told her brother afterward, she would have made him say it then if they had been "two fathom under water.""Will I what, Perez?" she demanded.

The carryall rose on two wheels and begun to turn over, but the Captain did not notice it. The arms of his heart's desire were about his neck, and he was looking into her eyes.

"Will you marry me?" he gasped.

"Yes," answered Miss Patience, and they went under together.

The Captain staggered to his feet, and dragged his chosen bride to hers. The ice-cold water reached their shoulders. And, like a flash, as they stood there, came a torrent of rain and a wind that drove the fog before it like smoke. Captain Perez saw the shore, with its silhouetted bushes, only a few yards away. Beyond that, in the blackness, was a light, a flickering blaze, that rose and fell and rose and fell again.

The Captain dragged Miss Patience to the beach.

"Run!" he chattered, "run, or we'll turn into icicles. Come on!"With his arm about her waist Perez guided his dripping companion, as fast as they could run, toward the light. And as they came nearer to it they saw that it flickered about the blackened ruins of a hen-house and a lath fence.

It was Mrs. Mayo's henhouse, and Mrs. Mayo's fence. Their adventurous journey had ended where it began.

"You see, Eri," said Captain Perez, as he told his friend the story that night, "that clock in the dining room that I looked at hadn't been goin' for a week; the mainspring was broke. 'Twa'n't seven o'clock, 'twas nearer nine when the fire started, and the tide wa'n't goin' out, 'twas comin' in. I drove into the water too soon, missed the crossin', and we jest drifted back home ag'in.

The horse had more sense than I did. We found him in the barn waiting for us."Abner Mayo had piled against the back of his barn a great heap of damp seaweed that he intended using in the spring as a fertilizer.

The fire had burned until it reached this seaweed and then had gone no further. The rain extinguished the last spark.

"Well, by mighty!" exclaimed Captain Perez for at least the tenth time, as he sat in the kitchen, wrapped in an old ulster of Mr.

Mayo's, and toasting his feet in the oven, "if I don't feel like a fool. All that scare and wet for nothin'.""Oh, not for nothin', Perez," said Miss Patience, looking tenderly down into his face.

"Well, no, not for nothin' by a good deal! I've got you by it, and that's everything. But say, Pashy!" and the Captain looked awed by the coincidence, "I went through fire and water to git you!"