“If—if we’re going to drown I’d rather drown in—a—room,” gasped Pola, clinging to Sidney and burying her face in Sidney’s shoulder.
It seemed to the girls as though months had passed since Lav had plunged to what they felt certain was his death. The Arabella had tossed about on the roughening water like some wild thing, her old timbers creaking and groaning under their new living. Just at first Sidney and Mart had been too concerned in quieting the panic-stricken Pola to face their danger; not until Pola had exhausted herself did they think of their possible fate.
Unless Lav succeeded in reaching the beach and giving an alarm, they might toss about for days or be dashed to pieces on some reef. Or, worse fate, Jed Starrow and his gang might find the boat and—
“Wh-at are you thinking about, Mart?” whispered Sidney after a long time of silence, broken only by the howling of the wind and the pounding of the water. “Let’s talk—and then we can’t hear—”
“Don’t be afraid, Sidney,” Mart spoke calmly. “You sort o’ belong to the Cape and we Cape folks don’t think anything of drowning. We sort of expect to, sometime—” But here her voice broke with a tremble. “I—I was thinking of gran’ma. I wish I’d been better to her. I talk back to her lots of times when I shouldn’t.”
“But you are good to her, Mart. And—I was thinking of Aunt Achsa. I shouldn’t have deceived her—about coming out here. I fooled myself into thinking that even a lie didn’t matter considering what we were trying to do. But the honor of Cape Cod isn’t worth anything happening to Lav. And if anything does happen there won’t be anyone to tell about Jed Starrow, anyway! Oh, Mart, I can’t bear to think about Lav. Why did we let him do it? Dear old Lav. I’ve been mean to him, too. He adores poetry and I—I never even told him that my father was a poet and that I know lots and lots of poems and—and—that I’ve written most a book myself.”
“Honest, Sid, was your father a poet? And you can write it yourself? Gee,” softly. “I wish I could do something like that. I’d rather be like that than anything else. I just pretend that I hate school and books and such things—it’s because I had to stop going to school to stay with gran’ma that I’ve put on that I didn’t have any use for it. Even when I was sort of laughing at you, Sid, down in my heart I was feeling aw’fly proud that you’d want to fool ’round with anyone like me—I’ll always be proud.”
“Oh, Mart—” Sidney faltered. “I wish I could put into words what Mr. Dugald taught me when I first came here. That it’s the big inside things that really count. He told me so’s I’d see Aunt Achsa and Lav as they really are. And, Mart, your giving up school to take care of your grandmother is a big thing, a real thing! You don’t want to forget it.”
“Oh, I’m—I’m—sick!” broke in Pola.
“Sit up straight and talk and you won’t think about it,” commanded Mart, so sternly that Pola straightened, her white face wan in the darkness.