ddenly, it was impossible to
work out until the right wind came again. And that might not be for
days, if one was unlucky. It had been known to happen so. Yet I lingered
over the thought, and the more I realized that it was unreasonable, the
more I wanted to go. The spirit of the Devonshire seas seemed, to my
fancy, to live on the guarded, dangerous rocks, and I must pay tribute
before I left his kingdom. Cary laughed a little at my one bit of
adventurous spirit so out of keeping with my gray hairs, but it was easy
to see that he too wanted to go, and that only fear for our safety and
comfort made him hesitate. The day before Anne Ford was due we went. It
was the day, too, after our sail in the moonlight that I half believed,
remembering its lovely unreality, had been a dream. But as we sailed
out, there lay Sir Richard Leigh's yacht to prove it, smart and
impressive, shining and solid in the sunlight as it had been ethereal
the night before. I gazed at her with some curiosity.

"Have you been on board?" I asked our sailor. "Is Sir Richard there?"

Cary glanced at Sally, who had turned a cold shoulder to the yacht and
was looking back at Clovelly village, crawling up its deep crack in the
cliff. "Yes," he said; "I've been on her twice. Sir Richard is living on
her."

"I suppose he's some queer little rat of a man," Sally brought out in
her soft voice, to nobody in particular.

I was surprised at the girl's incivility, but Cary answered promptly,
"Yes, Miss!" with such cheerful alacrity that I turned to look at him,
more astonished. I met eyes gleaming with a hardly suppressed amusement
which, if I had stopped to reason about it, was much out of place. But
yet, as I looked at him with calm dignity and seriousness, I felt myself
sorely tempted to laugh back. I am a bad old woman sometimes.

The Revenge careered along over the water as if mad to get to Lundy,
under a strong west wind. In about two hours the pile of fantastic rocks
lay stretched in plain view before us. We were a mile or more away--I am
a very uncertain judge of distance--but we could see distinctly the
clouds of birds, glittering white sea-gulls, blowing hither and thither
above the wild little continent where were their nests. There are
thousands and thousands of gulls on Lundy. We had sailed out from
Clovelly at two in bright afternoon sunshine, but now, at nearly four,
the blue was covering with gray, and I saw Cary look earnestly at the
quick-movi