“I love you, love you, love you,” the girl whispered as if the dark old ship were a person, a gallant knight of her dreams.
At that, leaning back on her pillow, one brown hand beneath her head, she fell asleep.
Just how long she slept she may never know. Enough that she suddenly found herself sitting up wide awake and staring out at the bay that was all aglow with a strange, lurid, unearthly light.
“It’s the end of the world,” she told herself and wondered at her own calmness.
“It’s Portland Harbor. It’s on fire, burning up!” came a little more excitedly as she found herself more truly awake.
It was only as she sprang to her feet and stood there in the window with her dream robes blowing about her that she realized the full and terrible truth.
Then she covered her eyes with her hands as she sank to the bed with a sharp cry.
“Black Gull, you are on fire. You are burning up!”
And there she had at last the solemn truth. At once her mind was in a whirl. How had it happened? She recalled the curious visit she and Betty had made there in the night and of the remarkable pirate band that had come to join them. Had these men returned? Had a match carelessly dropped, a stove overheated, brought the great catastrophe?
What could be done? Nothing. There was no fireboat. No pipe line could reach her. Black Gull was doomed.