"You are a pair of good boys," she said after looking at them for some time and muttering to herself the while. "Why don't you run away? I'll get you off the island yet, befo' that officer man wakes up."
"Why, Mother! we don't want to run away," Torry told her, laughing. "We belong to one of the Navy's crack superdreadnaughts."
"Aye, I know. The Kennebunk," said Mag, nodding gloomily.
"Sure," Torry rejoined. "We want to see some fighting."
"'Tis not fighting you-uns'll see," croaked the woman. "Old Mag tells you, and she knows. Yo' fine, big ship will go down in the midst of the seas and her crew with her. Better yo' luck if it happens befo' yo' git back to her already."
"You don't mean that?" Whistler cried.
"I'm a-tellin' yo' so," said the queer old woman. "Old Mag knows mo' than other folks. Oh, yes! She'll sink. Better yo' boys stay ashore."
"What do you know about 'the witch's warning'?" whispered Torry to Whistler. "She thinks she's got second sight. Knows more than anybody else. She's like one of the Seven Sutherland Sisters—she prophesies."
"Shucks!" chuckled Whistler in the same cautious tone, "they weren't prophetesses; they sold hair restorer."
But to himself Whistler muttered: