"We hev got to bail the water out," yelled Ben. "Bail, Myry, while I rows."
The mother grasped the sleeping child tighter between her knees, and began to throw the water into the lake. Suddenly a great wave half filled the boat.
"Ye can't do it, Ben," Myra screamed. "Ye can't keep the boat top up, and we'll all die to once.... Does ye love yer brat, Ben Letts?"
The voice, prophetic and high-pitched, struck terror to the heart of the fisherman. He stopped rowing, and shouted out over the waves for help. The lightning made day of the inky night for an instant, and the squatter Ben saw the woman, holding the child under one arm and clinging to the side of the boat with the other, creep toward him.
"Keep away!" he bellowed. "Keep the boat top up!"
Another flash.... She was closer, her white face and her staring eyes frightening him. He raised one great boot to ward her off, but she was at his side before it touched her. A large wave lifted one oar from the lock and bore it away on its crest. The boat, without pilot power, tipped dangerously. Loosening her hand from the side of the boat, Myra wound one arm about the knees of the squatter.
"Ben Letts," she cried, shrieking the words into his ear, "kiss yer brat afore he dies with ye, will ye? Ye ain't so much as ever touched him."
A dark storm-cloud broke directly over their head--one brilliant sheet flared the sky from the north to the south. The child, sleeping heavily under the drug, was close to the squatter's face. A revulsion of feeling overwhelmed Ben--approaching death aided the ghosts of his past bad deeds in their attack upon his wretched, over-wrought soul.... With a sob, he laid his lips upon the slumbering babe. A long kiss followed the first; another, and then another.
Myra gasped, and drew the boy back to her. The boat reared high in the boiling, seething waves, and the next whitecap wrenched the child from her hands, snatching it into the water.
"Ben Letts, our brat air gone!... There he be!... God!... There! There!"
Through a sudden, resplendent flood of light, they saw the babe poised for one brief instant on a huge, foaming shoulder of the lake. In her frenzy the squatter woman was murmuring over and over strange, inarticulate words which Ben did not heed. Their arms were locked tightly about each other. Ben Letts slowly fixed his cold, shivering lips on those of the girl, drawing her closer and closer into his embrace. The majesty of death was upon them, this squatter father and mother. Another glare of light showed them still clinging together, but the one following failed to reveal either man, woman or boat.