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All the while, thus, Tommy Lark’s conception of the urgency of the matter mounted high and oppressed him. Elizabeth Luke would not lightly dispatch a telegram from Grace Harbor to her mother at Scalawag. All the way from Grace Harbor? Not so! After all, this could be no message having to do with the affairs of Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl. Elizabeth would not have telegraphed such sentimental news. She would have written a letter. Something was gone awry with the maid. She was in trouble. She was in need. She was ill. She might be dying. And the more Tommy Lark reflected, as he climbed the dripping Black Cliff path, the more surely was his anxious conviction of Elizabeth Luke’s need confirmed by his imagination.

When Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl came to the crest of Black Cliff, a drizzle of rain was falling in advance of the fog. The wind was clipping past in soggy gusts that rose at intervals to the screaming pitch of a squall. A drab mist had crept around Point-o’-Bay and was spreading over the ice in Scalawag Run. Presently it would lie thick between Scalawag Island and the mainland of Point-o’-Bay Cove.

At the edge of the ice, where the free black water of the open met the huddled floe, the sea was breaking. There was a tossing line of white water–the crests of the breakers flying away in spindrift like long white manes in the wind. Even from the crest of Black Cliff, lifted high above the ice and water of the gray prospect below, it was plain that a stupendous sea was running in from the darkening open, slipping under the floe, swelling through the run, and subsiding in the farthest reaches of the bay.

From the broken rock of Black Cliff to the coast of Scalawag Run, two miles beyond, where Scalawag Harbor threatened to fade and vanish in the fog and falling dusk, the ice was in motion, great pans of the pack tossing like chips in the gigantic waves. Nowhere was the ice at rest. It was neither heavy enough nor yet sufficiently close packed to flatten the sea with its weight. And a survey of the creeping fog and the ominous approach of a windy night portended that no more than an hour of drab light was left for the passage.

“‘Tis a perilous task t’ try,” said Tommy Lark. “I never faced such a task afore. I fears for my life.”

“‘Tis a madcap thing t’ try!”

“Ay, a madcap thing. A man will need madman’s luck t’ come through with his life.”

“Pans as steep as a roof out there!”

“Slippery as butter, Sandy. ‘Twill be ticklish labor t’ cling t’ some o’ them when the sea cants them high. I wish we had learned t’ swim, Sandy, when we was idle lads t’gether. We’ll sink like two jiggers if we slips into the water. Is you comin’ along, Sandy? It takes but one man t’ bear a message. I’ll not need you.”

“Tommy,” Sandy besought, “will you not listen t’ reason an’ wisdom?”

“What wisdom, Sandy?”

“Lave us tear open the telegram an’ read it.”

“Hoosh!” Tommy ejaculated. “Such a naughty trick as that! I’ll not do it. I jus’ couldn’t.”

“‘Tis a naughty trick that will save us a pother o’ trouble.”

“I’m not chary o’ trouble in the maid’s behalf.”

“‘Twill save us peril.”

“I’ve no great objection t’ peril in her service. I’ll not open the telegram; I’ll not intrude on the poor maid’s secrets. Is you comin’ along?”

Sandy Rowl put a hand on Tommy Lark’s shoulder.

“What moves you,” said he impatiently, “to a mad venture like this, with the day as far sped as it is?”

“I’m impelled.”

“What drives you?”

“The maid’s sick.”

“Huh!” Sandy scoffed. “A lusty maid like that! She’s not sick. As for me, I’m easy about her health. She’s as hearty at this minute as ever she was in her life. An’ if she isn’t, we’ve no means o’ bein’ sure that she isn’t. ‘Tis mere guess-work. We’ve no certainty of her need. T’ be drove out on the ice o’ Scalawag Run by the guess-work o’ fear an’ fancy is a folly. ‘Tis not demanded. We’ve every excuse for lyin’ the night at Point-o’-Bay Cove.”