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"I knew it," groaned the redheaded one, as she clung, gasping, to the side of the boat.

"Kit! What kind of a game is this?"

"Hannah—she's in terrible trouble, Nat. They burned her house. Please—can you take her on the Dolphin?"

They dragged her over the side of the boat. "Where is she?" Nat demanded. "Tell the captain to heave to!" he yelled up toward the deck. "We're going ashore."

"There," pointed Kit, "by that pile of logs. We've been there all night. I didn't know what to do, and when I saw the ship—" All at once she was sobbing and babbling like a three-year-old, about the witch hunt, and the chase through the cornfield, and the man who had come so close. Nat's hands closed over hers hard and steady.

"'Tis all right, Kit," he said, over and over. "We'll take you both on and get you some dry clothes. Just hold on a few minutes more till we get Hannah." The boat scraped the shore.

Still dazed, Hannah accepted the miracle and the prospect of a journey like a docile child. Then after two shaky steps she turned obstinate. She would not set foot in the boat without her cat.

"I can't go off without her," she insisted. "I just can't, and thee ought to know that, Nat. She'd just grieve her heart out with no home to go to and me gone off on a ship."

"Then I'll get her," said Nat. "You wait here, and keep quiet, both of you."

Kit was outraged. If she had been Nat she would have picked Hannah up and carried her off in the boat with no more nonsense. As he strode up the bank, she scrambled after him through the wet underbrush. "You're crazy, Nat!" she protested, her teeth chattering with cold. "No cat is worth it. You've got to get her out of here. If you could have heard those people—"

"If she's set on that cat she's going to have it. They've taken everything else." Nat stood in the midst of the charred cinders that had been the little house. "Damn them!" he choked. "Curse all of them!" He kicked a smoldering log viciously.

They searched the trampled garden and presently they heard a cautious miaow. The yellow cat inched warily from beneath a pumpkin vine. She did not take to the idea of capture. They had to stalk her, one on each side of the garden, and Nat finally dived full length under a bush, dragged the cat out, and wrapped it tightly in his own shirt. Back at the shore Hannah received the writhing bundle with joy and climbed obediently into the rowboat.

"Where are we going, Nat?" she asked trustfully.

"I'm taking you to Saybrook for a visit with my grandmother. You'll be good company for her, Hannah. Come on, Kit. Father will go on without us."

"I'm not going, Nat. All I wanted was to see Hannah safe."

Nat straightened up. "I think you'd better, Kit," he said quietly. "'Till this thing blows over, at least. This is our last trip before winter. We'll find a place for you in Saybrook and bring you back first trip next spring."

Kit shook her head.

"Or you can go on to the West Indies with us."

Barbados! The tears sprang to her eyes. "I can't, Nat. I have to stay here."

The concern in his eyes hardened to awareness. "Of course," he said courteously. "I forgot. You're going to be married."

"'Tis Mercy," she stammered. "She's terribly ill. I couldn't go, I just couldn't, not knowing—"

Nat looked intently at her, and took one step nearer. The blue eyes were very close. "Kit—"

"Ahoy, there!" There was a bellow from the Dolphin. "What's keeping you?"

"Nat, quick! They'll hear the shouting!" Nat jumped into the boat. "You'll be all right? You need to get warm—"

"I'll go home now. Only hurry—"

She stood watching as the boat pulled away from the sand. Halfway to the ship Nat turned to stare back at her. Then he raised an arm silently. Kit raised her own arm to wave back, and then she turned and started back along the shore. She dared not wait to see them reach the Dolphin. In another moment she would lose every shred of commonsense and pride and fling herself into the water after the rowboat and plead