“PET SALT, are you sure all this is so? I wouldn’t wed with him if I could help it.”

Anny spoke anxiously, her little face white with apprehension.

She and Pet Salt were alone together on the deck of Ben’s old boat. The tide was well up and the waves leaped against the stern with a gurgling sound.

It was late in the evening, the wind was rising, and the sun was setting over the Island in a blaze of red and green light.

On board the Pet there was the customary muddle: empty kegs, rotting sail-cloth, torn fishing nets, and derelict baskets lay strewn about the decaying deck in endless confusion.

Pet was leaning against the stump of the main-mast, her red arms akimbo and her tousled gray head cocked on one side, while Anny stood looking on to the darkening water with her back to the old woman.

“Sure? Why, girl, certain I’m sure. As sure as this boat’s a vile hell, Master Black’erchief Dick will have you one way or another—wed or unwed. Which way lies with you?”

Pet’s harsh voice broke the warm quietness of the summer evening unpleasantly.

Anny caught her breath, and shrugging her shoulders turned toward the old woman. Then she laughed.

“Lord! you must be mad, Pet Salt, how could Master Dick carry me off from the Ship, the whole village there to stay him?” she said, brightening.

Pet laughed unpleasantly.

“You think too much of yourself, lass,” she said. “To stay him? And why should any one stay him?”

Anny’s eyes grew big with surprise and fear.

“What do you mean?” she said as slowly as she could. “Why, Gilbot——”

Pet began to laugh.

“You, lass, have less wit than most girls, if you think any one would turn away a moneyed captain because of a little serving slut,” she said.

Anny looked round her helplessly.

“Did you see Mother Nan yesterday?” she asked suddenly.

Pet began to swear.

“I did,” she said viciously. “The old ronyon! Come prowling around here for a look at your grandsire, like an old hen clucking for its chick.”

“Did—did she not speak with you of me?” Anny’s voice trembled.

Pet laughed again.

“Lord, girl! the whole Island don’t spend its time thinking and talking o’ you,” she said. “I heard naught of you from her——”

Anny looked round her hopelessly, the tears welling into her eyes. The sun had sunk out of sight behind the belt of oaks on the Island and everything around had grown gray and cool.

Suddenly she turned and threw herself before the old woman.

“Grandam, what will I do? What will I do?” she sobbed.

Pet kicked her away hastily and spat on the deck.

“Get up and behave yerself, Anny Farran,” she said sharply. “What should ye do but marry the handsome Spaniard and sail off with him? Such a chance don’t come to every dirty serving-maid.”

Anny sprang to her feet.

“I’ll not wed him,” she said, her voice clear and loud. “I’ll not if he kills me.”

Pet Salt’s smile vanished and a crafty, anxious light crept into her watery eyes. She crossed over to the girl with a peculiar smooth movement and stood very close to her, her villainous face very near to the young girl’s frightened one.

“Anny Farran,” she said, her harsh, high voice growing more and more uncanny, “there be some as say Pet Salt is a witch.”

Anny started involuntarily. The light was fading, and faint shadows were creeping fast all round the boat.

Away over the fields a corn-crake called plaintively once or twice and then, quite near, an owl screamed loudly.

Pet’s face grew distorted in the shade.

Anny shuddered; she shared in all the superstitions of the day, and witches and the evil eye were well known to her.

“Ay, they do!” she faltered, “but what say you?”

“I say—naught!”

Pet came a little nearer and her voice sank to a whisper.

Anny shrieked and started back.

“Holy Mother of God, defend me!” she muttered.

Pet laughed weirdly.

“Prayers don’t frighten Pet Salt,” she whispered, coming still nearer to the terrified Anny, who clung to the gunwale.

“What will you do?” The girl’s voice was so low that Pet could hardly hear it.

“Nay! What will you do, ronyon? Shall the handsome captain lie by you or no?”

Anny clenched her little brown hands so that the nails cut into her palms. The vision of Hal’s hurt and angry face kept rising up before her.

“And if I do not wed him what will you do?” she said at last.

“Bewitch you, girl, so that even your young slave, Hal, may loathe you,” Pet began in a slow sing-song voice. “So that your beautiful black hair may fall off on the sand like seaweed, leaving you old and hairless—so that your eyes may burn up and grow dim and the sight of the sea never more be seen in them—so that your teeth may grow black and ache with the pain of ten thousand devils tearing at their roots—so that your nails may drop off and lie on the floor like shells, and your fingers wither and grow black, and their knuckles decay and the joints drop off, and——”

Anny covered her eyes.

“Oh, peace—peace, I pray you,” she screamed. “I will do anything. Oh, peace——”

Pet began to laugh.

“Have a care, Anny, how you tell this,” she said, “or I will bewitch thee certainly.”

Anny looked at the woman curiously.

“Yet I will not wed,” she announced suddenly. “I mind me when you vowed that Master Pattern should have a blister grow on his skin to the size of an egg, and I mind me that he had no such thing at all.”

Pet began to swear heartily.

“The hell-kite went to the priest at West,” she explained.

Anny’s eyes lighted.

“Then so will I,” she said promptly.

“That you shall not.” Pet laughed raucously. “Look you, Ann Farran,” she said, “if you do so there’s other things that Pet can do. Send Hal Grame and you to Colchester to the Castle to rot your lives out in the foul dungeons they have there.”

This was the last. Anny, who was by this time thoroughly frightened, had been brought up along with the other Island children to fear Colchester Castle worse than death, and, indeed, the stories of the dungeons current at that time were very terrible, the civil war being only just over. She began to cry.

“I will wed with him,” she said.

“Secretly on this boat to-morrow night?”

Anny gasped. Nevertheless, she shrugged her shoulders and nodded.

“Yes.”

“Good! The Captain comes to-night to hear of it; will you wait to see him?”

“Nay.” The word broke from her lips like a sob, and she ran over to the rope ladder.

“If you fail——” Pet’s voice grew threatening.

Anny’s voice trembled.

“I will not fail,” she said, and then added beneath her breath, “Oh, Hal, what will I say to you?”

As she ran back to the Ship across the fast-darkening saltings Anny began to realize the situation a little more clearly. She had bound herself to marry Dick on the morrow; that was terrible enough in itself, but after she was married, what then? The girl stopped in her stride to think on it.

“After I am wed I can go back to the Ship,” she said, half aloud, “but why be wed first? Oh! whatever will I do?”

Two weeks ago she would have gone to Hal naturally. Now she swallowed uneasily in her throat.

Hal had hardly spoken to her of late; he had grown strangely sullen and taciturn, and spent all his spare time in a fishing-boat with Joe Pullen. She knew that they took the fish they caught up the Colne and sold it in the little inland villages. She had tried to speak to him several times, but he had always looked at her so fiercely that she had abandoned the attempt.

Alone on the wild, wind-swept marshes, the girl sank down on her knees on the damp spiky grass and covered her face with her hands. She remained quite still for several seconds and then sprang up with a little cry. Hastily she passed her hands over her shining plaits as though to make sure that they were still there, and examined her nails anxiously. Then she sighed with relief and with one fearful backward glance at the Pet, set off to the Ship, her skirts flying out behind her as she ran.