Peter Loud was promptly taken in the coils of that voiceless beauty whose speaking eye had met his so squarely. The mother had played him false, as she had Jethro—but with Peter these affairs were easier forgotten.
Within the week, as he was striding over the bare flats of Pull-an'-be-Damned, he saw the flash of something white inside a weir. The sun was low and dazzled him. He came close and saw that this was Rackby's daughter. She had slipped into the weir to tantalize a crab with the sight of her wriggling toes and so had stepped on a sharp shell and cut her foot to the bone.
Peter cried amazedly. The shadow of the weir net on her face and body trembled, but she uttered no slightest sound. It was as if some wild swan had fallen from the azure.
In falling she had hurt her leg and could not walk. Peter tore the sleeves from her arms and bound the foot, then bent eagerly and lifted her out of the weir.
Immediately she hid her cheek in his coat, shivered, set her damp lips with their flavor of sweet salt, full against his.
Deep-water Peter held her tighter yet. How could he know that here, on Pull-an'-be-Damned, within a biscuit's toss of the weirs, Cad Sills had served the same fare to Rackby. He turned and ran, holding her close, and the tide hissed at his heels like a serpent.
The harbor master, lately returned from evening inspection of the harbor, heard the rattle of oars under his wharf, and in no great while he saw Peter advancing with Day limp in his arms.
The sailor brushed past him into the kitchen, and laid the girl down, as he had laid her mother, northeast and southwest. Rackby at his side muttered:
"How come you here like this? How come you?"
A fearful misgiving caused him to drop to his knees. The girl opened her eyes; a new brilliance danced there. With a shiver, the harbor master perceived those signs of a fire got beyond control which had consumed the mother.