Margaret climbed. Without pause she went out under the overhanging
platform of the top, shifted her holds to the rigging that went aloft
from it, and swung around this rigging, easily, carelessly, timing
the action to the roll, and stood safely upon the top.

I followed. I breathed no prayers, knew no qualms, as I presented my
back to the deck and climbed out under the overhang, feeling with my
hands for holds I could not see. I was in an ecstasy. I could dare
anything. Had she sprung into the air, stretched out her arms, and
soared away on the breast of the gale, I should have unhesitatingly
followed her.

As my head outpassed the edge of the top so that she came into view,
I could see she was looking at me with storm-bright eyes. And as I
swung around the rigging lightly and joined her, I saw approval in
her eyes that was quickly routed by petulance.

"Oh, you've done this sort of thing before," she reproached, calling
loudly, so that I might hear, her lips close to my ear.

I shook a denial with my head that brightened her eyes again. She
nodded and smiled, and sat down, dangling her sea-boots into snow-
swirled space from the edge of the top. I sat beside her, looking
down into the snow that hid the deck while it exaggerated the depth
out of which we had climbed.

We were all alone there, a pair of storm petrels perched in mid air
on a steel stick that arose out of snow and that vanished above into
snow. We had come to the tip of the world, and even that tip had
ceased to be. But no. Out of the snow, down wind, with motionless