She had never in her life looked so beautiful. Her face was alight with joy, rosy from windburn, glowing amid the wild dark cloud of hair. She tied the ridiculous hat firmly on her head, tucked her subdued tangled hair into the back of the sweater. “I don’t suppose you have anything to eat in that bag of yours, do you?” she asked hopefully.

“Only sailors’ rations,” said Rhett, “hardtack and rum.”

“That sounds delicious. I’ve never tasted either one.”

“It’s not much past eleven, Scarlett. We’ll be home for dinner. Restrain yourself.”

“Can’t we stay out all day? I’m having such a good time.”

“Another hour; I have a meeting with my lawyers this afternoon.”

“Bother your lawyers,” said Scarlett, but under her breath. She refused to get angry and spoil her pleasure. She looked at the sunspangled water and the white curls of foam on each side of the bow, then flung out her arms and arched her back in a luxurious cat-like stretch. The sleeves of the sweater were so long that they extended past her hands, flapping in the wind.

“Careful, my pet,” Rhett laughed, “you might blow away.” He freed the tiller, preparing to come about, looking automatically for any other vessels that might be in his proposed path.

“Look, Scarlett,” he said urgently, “quick. Out there to starboard—to your right. I’ll bet you’ve never seen that before.”

Scarlett’s eyes scanned the marshy shore in the near distance. Then—halfway between boat and shore—a gleaming gray shape curved above the water for a moment before disappearing beneath it.

“A shark!” she exclaimed. “No, two—three sharks. They’re coming right at us, Rhett. Do they want to eat us?”

“My dear imbecilic child, those are dolphins, not sharks. They must be heading for the ocean. Hold tight and duck. I’m going to bring her around tight. Maybe we can travel with them. It’s the most charming thing in the world to be in the middle of a school of them. They love to play.”

“Play? Fish? You must think I’m mighty gullible, Rhett.” She bent under the swinging boom.

“They aren’t fish. Just watch. You’ll see.”

There were seven dolphins in the pod. By the time Rhett maneuvered the sloop onto the course the sleek mammals were following, the dolphins were far ahead. Rhett stood and shaded his eyes against the sun. “Damn!” he said. Then, immediately in front of the sloop, a dolphin leapt from the water, bowed its back, and dived with a splash back into the water.

Scarlett pounded on Rhett’s thigh with a sweater-mittened fist. “Did you see that?”

Rhett dropped onto the seat. “I saw it. He came to tell us to get a move on. The others are probably waiting for us. Look!” Two dolphins had broken water ahead. Their graceful leaps made Scarlett clap her hands. She pushed the sweater sleeves up her arms and clapped again, this time successfully. Two yards to her right the first dolphin surfaced, cleared his blow hole with a spurt of spume, then lazily rocked back down into the water.

“Oh, Rhett, I never saw anything so darling. It was smiling at us!”

Rhett was smiling, too. “I always think they’re smiling, and I always smile back. I love dolphins, always have.”

The dolphins treated Rhett and Scarlett to what could only be called a game. They swam alongside, under, across the bow, sometimes singly, sometimes in twos or threes. Diving and surfacing, blowing, rolling, leaping, looking from eyes that seemed human, seemed to be laughing above the engaging smile-like mouth at the clumsy, boat-bound man and woman.

“There!” Rhett pointed when one burst from the surface in a leap, and “There!” Scarlett yelled when another leapt in the opposite direction. “There!” and “There!” and “There!” whenever the dolphins broke water. It was a surprise each time, always in a spot that was different from the places where Scarlett and Rhett were looking.

“They’re dancing,” Scarlett insisted.

“Frolicking,” Rhett suggested.

“Showing off,” they agreed. The show was enchanting.

Because of it Rhett was careless. He didn’t see the dark patch of cloud that was spreading across the horizon behind them. His first warning was when the steady fresh wind suddenly dropped. The taut billowing sails went limp, and the dolphins nosed abruptly down into the water and disappeared. He looked then—too late—over his shoulder and saw the squall racing over the water and the sky.

“Get down into the belly of the boat, Scarlett,” he said quietly, “and hold on. We’re about to have a storm. Don’t be frightened, I’ve sailed through much worse.”

She looked behind and her eyes widened. How could it be so sunny and blue in front of them and so black back there? Without a word she slid down and found a handhold beneath the seat where she and Rhett had been sitting.

He was making rapid adjustments to the rigging. “We’ll have to run before it,” he said, then he grinned. “You’ll get wet, but it will be a hell of a ride.” At that moment the squall hit. Day turned to liquid near-night as the clouds blackened the sky and loosed sheets of rain on them. Scarlett opened her mouth to cry out, and it was immediately filled with water. “We’ll have to run before it,” he said, then he grinned. “You’ll get wet, but it will be a hell of a ride.” At that moment the squall hit. Day turned to liquid near-night as the clouds blackened the sky and loosed sheets of rain on them. Scarlett opened her mouth to cry out, and it was immediately filled with water.

My God, I’m drowning, she thought. She bent over and spat and coughed until her mouth and throat were clear. She tried to lift her head, to see what was happening, to ask Rhett what was that terrible noise. But her giddy battered hat was collapsed onto her face, and she couldn’t see anything. I’ve got to get rid of it or I’ll suffocate. She tore at the tulle bow under her chin with her free hand. Her other hand was desperately gripping the metal handle she had found. The boat was pitching and yawing, creaking as if it was coming apart. She could feel the sloop racing down, down—it must be almost standing on its nose, it’s going to go straight through the water, right to the bottom of the sea. Oh, sweet Mother of God, I don’t want to die!

With a shudder the sloop stopped its plunge. Scarlett pulled the wet tulle roughly over her chin, over her face, and she was free of the smothering folds of wet straw. She could see!

She looked at the water, then up, at water, then up . . . up . . . up. There was a wall of water higher than the tip of the mast, ready to fall and smash the frail wooden shell to bits. Scarlett tried to scream, but her throat was paralyzed by fear. The sloop was shaking and groaning; it rode with a sickening slide up the side of the wall, then hung on the top, shuddering, for an endless terrifying moment.

Scarlett’s eyes were narrowed against the rain pouring down on her head with terrible pounding blows, streaming down over her face. On all sides there were angry, surging, foam-streaked mountainous waves with curling breaking white tops streaming fans of spume into the furious wind and rain. “Rhett,” she tried to shout. Oh God, where was Rhett? She turned her head from side to side, trying to see through the rain. Then, just as the sloop dove furiously down the other side of the wave, she found him.

God damn his soul! He was kneeling, his back and shoulders straight, his head and chin high, and he was laughing into the wind and the rain and the waves. His left hand gripped the tiller with corded strength, and his right hand was outstretched, holding on to the line that was wrapped around his elbow and forearm and wrist, the sheet that led to the fearful pull of the huge wind-filled mainsail. He’s loving this! The fight with the wind, the death danger. He loves it.

I hate him!

Scarlett looked up at the towering threat of the next wave and for a wild, despairing instant she waited for it to topple, to trap, to destroy her. Then she told herself that she had nothing to fear. Rhett could manage anything, even the ocean itself. She lifted her head, as his was lifted, and gave herself over to the wild perilous excitement.

Scarlett did not know about the chaotic power of the wind. As the little sloop rode up the side of the thirty-foot wave, the wind stopped. It was only for a few seconds, a freak of the center of the squall, but the mainsail flattened, and the boat slewed to broadside, carried erratically by water current only in a perilous climb. Scarlett was aware that Rhett was rapidly freeing his arm from the encircling slack line, that he was doing something different with the swinging tiller, but she had no hint that anything was wrong until the crest of the wave was nearly under the keel and Rhett shouted, “Jibe! Jibe,” and threw his body painfully over hers.

She heard a rattling, creaking noise close to her head and sensed the slow then faster then rushing swing of the heavy boom above. Everything happened very fast, yet it seemed to be terribly, unnaturally slow, as though the whole world were stopping. She looked without understanding at Rhett’s face so near to hers, and then it was gone and he was on his knees again doing something, she didn’t know what, except that heavy loops of thick rope were falling on her.

She didn’t see the crosswind ruffle, then suddenly fill, the wet canvas of the mainsail and propel it to the opposite side of the wayless sloop with an ever-mounting force so mightly that there was a crack like the sound of lightning striking and the thick mast broke and was carried into the sea by the momentum and weight of the sail. The hull of the boat bucked, then lifted to starboard and rolled slowly, following the pull of the fouled rigging, until it was upside down. Capsized in the cold storm-torn sea.