Fascinated and trembling, she stood considering the livid squatters, no sound, after the first cry, issuing from her pale lips. The dead faces were so close to each other that a human hand could not pass between them. Upon the plain face of Myra rested a peaceful expression, as if she possessed a quietude she had never known before. Her eyes were closed, and one arm was tightly clasped about Ben's neck--the other about his waist. The storm had loosened the meager hair, had flung it in disorder over the fisher-girl's shoulders. Ben's brown teeth gleamed dark; the drawn lips were stretched wide, as if a pain, dreadful and torturing, had opened them never to be closed again. His two huge arms, twisted about the frail frame of the girl, were locked together by the horny fingers. To Tessibel it seemed that Myra smiled faintly in the possession of her longed-for happiness. She had Ben Letts at last, and forever--he was her gift of the storm, the eternal gift of a wild night. Myra had sought, and had found him.
The shanty door pushed open. Like one in a dream, Tess was still looking down upon the dead. Lifting her gaze, she saw Satisfied watching her, his eyes glowing with subdued pain.
"Myry air dead," he said, in a low voice, coming forward.
"Ben Letts, too," added the squatter girl.
"And the brat," finished Longman.
Tess, startled, lifted up her head.
"The brat! I had forgot him," she muttered. "He air dead, too?"
"Yep. He air here."
Longman drew down the sheet still further, exposing the lifeless baby. The thin little body lay between the father and mother.
For many minutes they surveyed the dead trio in rapt attention.
"Where air Myry's ma?" asked Tessibel presently.
"Back there, in Ezy's bed. She air sick, and so air Mammy Letts."
"Ezy were buried yesterday," ruminated Tess.
"Yep, and Myry be a-goin' to the same place. Ma and me air--alone."
There was something strangely pathetic in the quiet words, in the stolid, ugly face with its hard lines, in the mouth twitching at the corners as he spoke. Tess sprang toward him, and wound her strong young arms about him.
"Myry air happy," she burst forth; "happier than when she were livin' with you. She air with Ben Letts."
Satisfied, towering over her, blinked confusedly at her words. Puzzling, he drew his heavy brows down darkly.
"Myry were a-seekin' Ben," Tess went on hurriedly, "and the brat couldn't stay without its pa and ma. I says as how Myry air happy, Satisfied."