ity of his escaping through it. The roof was formed of the
deck planks.

He had hardly examined his surroundings when he heard a voice in sharp
command on deck, and the running of feet, creaking of blocks, and
straining of sheets as sail was got on the vessel. His room presently
took an acute angle to starboard, and he realized that, with the fair
gale on the quarter, they must be crowding her with canvas.

He could tell by the look of the water as it flew past his port that
the remainder of the trip to St. Andrews would not take long. He knew
the course there from his present position must be north, a little
west, across the Bay of Fundy.

The _Nettie B._, when compelled to surrender her prisoner, had rounded
Nova Scotia and was on the home-stretch toward Quoddy Roads. She was,
in fact, less than thirty miles away from Grande Mignon Island, and
Code had thought with a great and bitter homesickness of the joy just
a sight of her would be.

He longed for the white Swallowtail lighthouse with its tin swallow
above; for the tumbled green-clothed granite of the harbor approaches;
for the black, sharp-toothed reefs that showed on the half-water near
the can-buoy, and for the procession of stately headlands to north and
south, fading from sight in a mantle of purple and gray.

But most of all for the crescent of stony beach, the nestle of white
cottages along the King's Road, and the green background of the
mountain beyond, with Mallaby House in the very heart of it.

This had been his train of thought when Burns had opened the door to
deliver him up to the gunboat, and now it returned to him as the
stanch vessel under him winged her way across the blue afternoon sea.

He wondered if the _Albatross_ would pass close enough inshore for him
to get a glimpse of Mignon's tall and forbidding fog-wreathed
headlands. Just a moment of this familiar sight would be balm to his
bruised spirit. He felt that he could gather strength from the sight
of home. He had been among aliens so long!

But no nearer than just a glimpse. He made a firm resolution never to
push the prow of the _Lass_ into Flagg Cove until he stood clear of
the charges against him. He admitted that it might take years, but
his resolution was none the less strong.

His place of confinement was on the starboard side of the _Albatross_,
and he was gratified after a few minutes to see the sun pouring
through his porthole.

Despair had left him now, and he was qu