He retired soon after. The bed they gave him was a good one. He was tired, yet he did not sleep. For a full hour he thrashed about. Then a sudden resolve put him to rest.
As is the way with persons endowed with particularly splendid physique, Ruth, in the broad rope bed beside her cousin, fell asleep at once. She had wrestled long that day with trap lines. The struggle to reach shore had been fatiguing. Her sleep was sweet and dreamless.
Not so with Pearl. Her mind ever filled with fancy, was now overflowing. She was now on Monhegan, the island of her dreams. She recalled as if they were told yesterday the tales she had heard told of this island by her seafaring uncle before she was old enough to go to school.
“Oh, Uncle,” she had cried. “Take me there! Take me to Monhegan!”
“Some day, child,” he had promised.
Alas, poor man, he had not lived to fulfill his promise. Like many another brave fisherman, he had lost his life on the dreary banks of Newfoundland.
“Dear Uncle,” she whispered as her throat tightened, “now I am here. Here! And I know you must be glad.”
The storm was still on. She could hear the distant beat of waves on Black Head, Burnt Head and Skull Rock. The great fog horn still sent out its message from Manana.
“Hoo-who-ee-Whoo-oo!” Sometimes rising, sometimes falling, it seemed a measureless human voice shouting in the night. The sound of it was haunting.
Rising and wrapping a blanket about her, the girl went to the low window sill, to drop upon the floor and sit there staring into the night.