When Macleod got down to the small stone pier, the two men were in the
boat. Johnny Wickes was standing at the door of the storehouse.

"Would you like to go for a sail, Johnny?" Macleod said abruptly, but
there was no longer that dangerous light in his eyes.

"Oh yes, sir," said the boy, eagerly; for he had long ago lost his dread
of the sea.

"Get in, then, and get up to the bow."

So Johnny Wickes vent cautiously down the few slippery stone steps, half
tumbled into the bottom of the great open boat, and then scrambled up to
the bow.

"Where will you be for going, sir?" said one of the men when Macleod had
jumped into the stern and taken the tiller.

"Anywhere--right out!" he answered, carelessly.

But it was all very well to say "right out!" when there was a stiff
breeze blowing right in. Scarcely had the boat put her nose out beyond
the pier, and while as yet there was but little way on her, when a big
sea caught her, springing high over her bows and coming rattling down on
her with a noise as of pistol-shots. The chief victim of this deluge was
the luckless Johnny Wickes, who tumbled down into the bottom of the
boat, vehemently blowing the salt-water out of his mouth, and rubbing
his knuckles into his eyes. Macleod burst out laughing.

"What's the good of you as a lookout?" he cried. "Didn't you see the
water coming?"

"Yes, sir," said Johnny, ruefully laughing, too. But he would not be
beaten. He scrambled up again to his post, and clung there, despite the
fierce wind and the clouds of spray.

"Keep her close up, sir," said the man who had the sheet of the huge
lugsail in both his hands, as he cast a glance out at the darkening sea.

But this great boat, rude and rough and dirty as she appeared, was a
splendid specimen of her class; and they know how to build such boats up
about that part of the world. No matter with how staggering a plunge she
went down into the yawning green gulf, the white foam hissing away from
her sides; before the next wave, high, awful, threatening, had come down
on her with a crash as of mountains falling, she had glided buoyantly
upward, and the heavy blow only made her bows spring the higher, as
though she would shake herself free, like a bird, from the wet. But it
was a wild day to be out. So heavy and black was the sky in the west
that the surface of the sea out to the horizon seemed to be a moving
mass of white foam, with only streaks of green and purple in it. The
var