"But _you_--we put the laugh on you, eh? That oar in your hand--ha,
ha! Do not lay the blame altogether upon your cousin. _I_ burned
those letters into that wood with my curling irons. Fooled by a
girl, eh, Tunis Latham? Ah! Learn your lesson, Captain Latham! We
Portygee women are not to be scorned by _any_ schooner captain. No!"
She snapped her fingers again in his face and turned away, swaying
her hips and tossing her head as she disappeared into her father's
cottage. When Tunis looked around for his cousin, he found that that
facile young man, taking advantage of the girl's intervention, had
slipped away.
* * * * *
A winter hurricane had pounced upon the Cape and torn at it with
teeth and claws, as though seeking to dismember it--to wrench the
forty-mile curved claw of the Cape from the remainder of Barnstable
County.
The driven snow masked everything--earth, houses, trees, and the
shivering bushes; it clung to these objects, iced upon them like
frosting. No craft ventured out of Big Wreck Cove, least of all the
_Seamew_, although she had a cargo in her hold and a complete and
satisfied crew in her forecastle.
Tunis Latham was speaking of the latter fact to Aunt Lucretia in the
warm and homelike kitchen of Latham's Folly.
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