Captain Owen Kettle was composing a sonnet on the magnolia, and dogged work was trying to finish what a one-line inspiration had begun. The two gaunt mosquitoes, who had slipped into the room when the wire-gauze door was shut, grew visibly fatter without danger to life or wing. In his fine creative frenzy Captain Kettle never felt their touch. “Hallo, Kettle! Got back at last, you see, and a horrible time I’ve had of it.” “Than Popish saint more holier,” wrote the little man, reading the words as they sprawled across the paper. “And now I want to get in something about the smell. ‘Angel-breathed’ is the thing, only it don’t seem to lay up handily with the rest. Angels are certain to have good breath, and these flowers smell as nutty as anything I’ve tried. Just take a niff at them yourself. Well, Mr. Onslow, here you are again, and I haven’t said I’m glad to see you. But I am. It’s as good as meat to me to put eyes on you and hear what’s to be doing next. I tell you, it’s been pretty dull work with the donkeyman off all day bird-shooting, and me as ship’s husband sitting here on my own tail. I fancy you’d be a bit astonished at walking on board here same as you would into a house without having to hail a boat.” “A little; not much. I was prepared for anything after what I saw between Point Sebastian and this.” “I fancy they’ll have to bring out new geography books about this part of Florida. I never saw such a place. Why, sir, the blessed ground fairly got up and walked during that blow. I don’t think the steamer shifted much; canted a bit to leeward maybe, but didn’t budge out of her keel-groove; but it was the shores that fetched weigh. When once they broke moorings, the trees set back their shoulders and sheeted home, and great islands bore down on us like ships. The lightning burnt flares all the time, and I watched through the chart-house ports because no one could stand on deck outside. I’m not a frightened man, Mr. Onslow, or a superstitious, but I thought that night was too hard for a cyclone. I tell you, sir, and you may laugh if you like, I reckoned it up that Judgment Day had come, and I got the Prayer-book and read myself the Burial Service clean through, sea bits and all, so as to fetch whatever happened, land or water. I haven’t led a bad life, Mr. Onslow; pretty religious ashore, and never sparing myself trouble, in hazing a crew so as to carry out owner’s business at sea; and when I’d said that Burial Service, I felt I’d done all that could be expected. There was only one thing,” the little man added plaintively. “I wished I’d a new-washed jacket aboard. The one I’d on was that smeared and crumpled I should have felt shame to appear in it.” “Well, I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” said Onslow. “It was a terrible night for any one in this area.”