"It can't rain," said Moke.
"No fear of that," added Poke, in a muffled voice from under his blanket.
"What's the reason?" Perce demanded.
"Uncle Moses said so," replied both the twins together.
"Oh, then, of course it can't!" laughed Perce. "And the wind wont change, and carry the kelp all off, and land it on some other beach, as it did the last time I was coming to get sea-weed here. The wind clipped around to the nor'ard and northeast, and in the morning this beach, that had been covered with it, was as clean as a whistle; while Coombs's Cove, where there hadn't been any, was full of it."
"Who's going to wake Nicodemus in the morning?" asked Moke.
"The one who's first awake himself," said Perce. And he sang, the others joining in:
"'Wake me up,' was his charge, 'at the first break of day, Wake me up for the great jubilee!'"
After that they became silent. The fire died on the beach. The breakers plunged and drew back, with incessant noise, in the darkness; the wind moaned in the woods, and whistled among the coarse sparse grass and wild peas that grew about the dunes. But notwithstanding the strangeness of their situation, the boys were soon asleep.
Uncle Moses proved a true prophet. There was no rain in the huddling clouds that at one time overspread the sky. They broke and lifted, and bright stars peeped from under their heavy lids. Then the moon rose and silvered them, and shed a strange light upon the limitless, unresting, solitary waves.