I turned and looked at her sidewise. She was standing by the railing, leaning a little outward, the top of her from the waist picked out bright by the lens behind her. I didn't know what in the world to say, and yet I had a feeling I ought not to sit there mum. "I wonder," said I, "what that captain's thinking of, fetching in so handy to-night. It's no way. I tell you, if 'twasn't for this light, she'd go to work and pile up on the ledge some thick night----" She turned at that and stared straight into the lens. I didn't like the look of her face. Somehow, with its edges cut hard all around and its two eyes closed down to slits, like a cat's, it made a kind of mask. "And then," I went on, uneasy enough--"and then where'd all their music be of a sudden, and their goings-on and their singing----" "And dancing!" She clipped me off so quick it took my breath. "D-d-dancing?" said I. "That's dance-music," said she. She was looking at the boat again. "How do you know?" I felt I had to keep on talking. Well, sir--she laughed. I looked at her. She had on a shawl of some stuff or other that shined in the light; she had it pulled tight around her with her two hands in front at her breast, and I saw her shoulders swaying in tune. "How do I _know_?" she cried. Then she laughed again, the same kind of a laugh. It was queer, sir, to see her, and to hear her. She turned, as quick as that, and leaned toward me. "Don't you know how to dance, Ray?" said she. "N-no," I managed, and I was going to say "_Aunt Anna_," but the thing choked in my throat. I tell you she was looking square at me all the time with her two eyes and moving with the music as if she didn't know it. By heavens, sir, it came over me of a sudden that she wasn't so bad-looking, after all. I guess I must have sounded like a fool. "You--you see," said I, "she's cleared the rip there now, and the music's gone. You--you hear?" "Yes," said she, turning back slow. "That's where it stops every night--night after night--it stops just there--at the rip." When she spoke again her voice was different. I never heard the like of it, thin and taut as a thread. It made me shiver, sir. "I hate 'em!" That's what she said. "I hate 'em all. I'd like to see 'em dead. I'd love to see 'em torn apart on the rocks, night after night. I could bathe my hands in their blood, night after night." And do you know, sir, I saw it with my own eyes, her hands moving in each other above the rail. But it was her voice, though. I didn't know what to do, or what to say, so I poked my head through the railing and looked down at the water. I don't think I'm a coward, sir, but it was like a cold--ice-cold--hand, taking hold of my beating heart.