ock-marked."
"We'll see at sunrise," said Charlie. "Now, boys," he shouted, "go ahead
with the sails."
Once more there was that rippling of the ropes through the blocks, as
our mainsail rose up high against the moon and filled proudly with the
steady northeast breeze we had been waiting for. The water began to talk
along our sides, and the immense freshness of the nocturnal sea took us
in its huge embrace. The spray began to fly over our bows as we nosed
into the glassy rollers, one of which, on the starboard side, admonished
us, by half swallowing us, that only the mighty-limbed immortals might
dance with safety on the bar that night, and that it were wise for even
45-foot yawls to hug the land till daylight. So, reluctantly, we kept
the shadowy coast-line for our companion, as we steered for the
southwestern end of the island; to our right, companions more of our
mood, parallel ridges of savage whiteness, where the surf boiled and
gleamed along the coral shoals.
How good it seemed to all of us to be out thus in the freedom of the
night and the sea--not least to the great noble-headed hound sitting up
on his haunches, keen and watchful by the steersman's side. What a
strange waste of a life so short to be sleeping there on the land, when
one might be out and away on such business as ours!
So two or three hours went by, as we plunged on, to the seething sound
of the water, and the singing of our sails, and all the various rumour
of wind and sea. After all, it was a good music to sleep to, and, for
all my scorn of sleeping landsmen, an irresistible drowsiness stretched
me out on the roof of the little cabin, wonderfully rocked into
forgetfulness.
My nap came to an end suddenly, as though some one had flung me out
through a door of blue and gold into a new-born world. There was the
sun rising, the moon still on duty, and the morning star divinely naked
in the heaven. And, with these glories, there rushed in again upon my
ears the lovely zest and turmoil of the sea, heaving huge and tumultuous
about us in gleaming hills and foam-flecked valleys.
And there was Charlie, his broad face beaming with boyish happiness, and
something like a fatherly gentleness in his eyes, as he watched his
companion at the tiller, whom, for a half-asleep moment of waking, I
couldn't account for, till our start all came back to me, when I
realised that it was our young scapegrace of over-night. Charlie and he
evidently were on the be
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