The girl opened her
eyes; a new brilliance danced there. With a shiver, the harbor master
perceived those signs of a fire got beyond control which had consumed
the mother.
"She has cut her foot, friend Rackby," said Peter. "I took the liberty
to bring her here--so."
Wrath seized the little man. "Thank you for nothing, Peter Loud!" he
cried, and these again were the very words Cad Sills had hurled at him
when he had saved her life at Pull-an'-be-Damned.
"That's as you say," said Deep-water Peter.
"You have done your worst now," said Jethro. "If I find you here again I
will shoot you down like a dog."
Peter laughed very bitterly. "You have got what is yours, Harbor
Master," he said, "and it takes two to make a quarrel."
But as he was going through the door he looked back. The girl unclosed
her eyes, and a light played out of them that followed him into the dark
and streamed across the heavens like the meteorite that had once fallen
on Meteor Island.
Peter had taken a wreath of fire to his heart. The girl attended him
like something in the corner of his eye. Times past count, he plied his
oars among the cross currents to the westward of that island, hoping to
catch a glimpse of his siren on the crags.
Sometimes for long moments he lay on his oars, hearing the blue tide
with a ceaseless motion heave and swirl and gutter all round its rocky
border, and the serpents' hiss come from some Medusa's head of trailing
weed uttered in venomous warning.
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