Languidly, he unclosed his eyes. What did it all mean: the waves roaring close at hand; the driftwood fire burning hard by; the circle of anxious faces? Through his dim senses ran the lines long familiar, never till now fully realized:
"The tall masts flickered as they lay afloat The crowds, the temples wavered, and the shore."
What made everything wobble about like that? Was he dying? What had brought him here, anyhow? Then, with a rush, it all came back. Raising himself on one elbow, he looked about inquiringly. "Where is she?" he asked, and fell back exhausted by the effort of speech.
"Here and safe," answered a woman's voice which he recognized as that of Winifred Anstice. "The captain and crew are saved too."
"Could they all swim?" Flint questioned feebly.
"Hold your tongue!" cried Dr. Cricket, with more good sense than good manners. "Your business now is to save your strength. Leave questions for later in the day. If that coffee is done, Ben, pass it round. We will all have a pull at it."
The commonplace of the daily routine is a blessed relief after the overstrained excitement of a great catastrophe. We eat and drink, and life seems real once more. Even Dr. Cricket was drawn for a moment from his patient's side to the circle gathered about Ben Bradford, who stood with the steaming coffee-pot in one hand, and a tin dipper in the other. Nectar and ambrosia, served from jewelled plate, could not have offered more temptation to the appetite of the weary group. Flint, lying a little apart, was conscious that Leonard Davitt was standing beside him, staring down into his face. As the young fisherman turned away, Flint heard him say, below his breath: "Damn him!"
"We pass through life separated from many people as by a wall of glass. We see them, we are conscious of their presence; but we never touch."
The evening following the wreck of "The Mary Ann" found the friends in council, who included most of the summer population of Nepaug, gathered around the White-House hearth, on which blazed a hospitable fire, doubly cheering in its radiant contrast to the gathering darkness without. The wind, which had risen to half a gale, rattled at the window panes and roared down the chimney. The sound of the booming surf, as the great waves hurled themselves against the dunes, made itself heard, even through the heavy pine doors and shutters. The foam, which yesterday curved in lines of delicate spray below the headland, was now lashed into a lather of white terror. Above it through the twilight rose, dim and ghostlike, the masts of the wrecked vessel.