as sheered round; and
then the great spinnaker bulges out with the breeze, and away she goes
up the river again. Chronometers are in request. It is only a matter of
fifty seconds that the nearest rival, now coming sweeping along, has to
make up. But what is this that happens just as the enemy has got round
the Nore? There is a cry of "Man overboard!" The spinnaker boom has
caught the careless skipper and pitched him clean into the plashing
waters, where he floats about, not as yet certain, probably, what course
his vessel will take. She at once brings her head up to wind and puts
about; but meanwhile a small boat from the lightship has picked up the
unhappy skipper, and is now pulling hard to strike the course of the
yacht on her new tack. In another minute or two he is on board again;
and away she goes for home.

"I think you have won the sweepstakes, Miss White," Macleod said. "Your
enemy has lost eight minutes."

She was not thinking of sweepstakes. She seemed to have been greatly
frightened by the accident.

"It would have been so dreadful to see a man drowned before your
eyes--in the midst of a mere holiday excursion."

"Drowned?" he cried. "There? If a sailor lets himself get drowned in
this water, with all these boats about, he deserves it."

"But there are many sailors who cannot swim at all."

"More shame for them," said he.

"Why, Sir Keith," said Mrs. Ross, laughing, "do you think that all
people have been brought up to an amphibious life like yourself? I
suppose in your country, what with the rain and the mist, you seldom
know whether you are on sea or shore."

"That is quite true," said he, gravely. "And the children are all born
with fins. And we can hear the mermaids singing all day long. And when
we want to go anywhere, we get on the back of a dolphin."

But he looked at Gertrude White. What would she say about that far land
that she had shown such a deep interest in? There was no raillery at all
in her low voice as she spoke.

"I can very well understand," she said, "how the people there fancied
they heard the mermaids singing--amidst so much mystery, and with the
awfulness of the sea around them."

"But we have had living singers," said Macleod, "and that among the
Macleods, too. The most famous of all the song-writers of the Western
Highlands was Mary Macleod, that was born in Harris--Mairi Nighean
Alasdair ruaidh, they called her, that is, Mary, the daughter of Red
Alister. Macleod of D