The girl's heart leaped out to him. Did ever such a man make landing in the bay before? And surely he must think the world of her? Tenderness for him overwhelmed her; and out under the stars she whispered the words of warning in his ear.
"What's it, Bess? You're not foolin'? The trader to the head of them?"
"Ay, an' they'll be at Half-Tide Beach afore the sun rises——"
"D'y' mean, Bessie, d'y' mean——"
"I mean all that's bad they'll do to you, Sammie. I heard 'em my own self. 'What right has this American to come here and take the herrin' from our very doors? What right?' That's the way the trader talked to 'em in the back room afore you came in. 'In the old days I've seen men beat to death on the beach for less,' I heard 'em through the bulkhead. 'Ay, an' their vessels run up on the rocks somewhere,' he goes on. An' it's you, Sammie, they has in mind."
"And the crew to Caplin Cove, an' only me and Tim to stand by the vessel. The vessel and her full hold. But who'll get the word to them? If only there was some one, some one we could trust, Bess!"
"There is one that could do that, too, boy."
"Who? What! Yourself, Bess? Could you make where they are—Caplin Cove—alone, and by night—and tell 'em what's in the wind, so they'll be aboard in time, while I go and hurry after Tim Lacy to the vessel at Half-Tide Harbor? Could a woman like a man well enough to do that?"
"Well, women likes men sometimes, Sammie."
"God bless you, Bess, of course. And sometimes, too, a man likes—But, Bess!" She lay swaying in the hollow of his arm. "Bessie!"—and oh, the nearness of him! "I don't want to fool you, girl—we was carryin' sail the night your brother Simon was lost. A livin' gale, and she buttin' into it with a whole mains'l—you won't hold that agin' me?"