When they came to the Head and there paused to survey Anxious Bight in a flash of the moon Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke were tingling and warm and limber and eager. Yet they were dismayed by the prospect. No man could cross from the Head to Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run Cove in the dark. Doctor Luke considered the light. Communicating masses of ragged cloud were driving low across Anxious Bight. Offshore there was a sluggish bank of black cloud. And Doctor Luke was afraid of that bank of black cloud. The moon was risen and full. It was obscured. The intervals of light were less than the intervals of shadow. Sometimes a wide, impenetrable cloud, its edges alight, darkened the moon altogether. Still—there was light enough. All that was definitely ominous was the bank of black cloud lying sluggishly offshore.
"I don't like that cloud, Billy," said Doctor Luke.
"No, sir; no more does I."
"It will cover the moon by and by."
"Sure, sir."
"There may be snow in it."
"Sure t' be, sir."
The longer Doctor Luke contemplated that bank of black cloud—its potentiality for catastrophe—the more he feared it.
"If we were to be overtaken by snow——"
Billy interrupted with a chuckle.