gustily in; and there were hurrying clouds of a leaden
hue tearing across the sky. As for the islands--where were they? Ulva
was visible, to be sure, and Colonsay--both of them a heavy and gloomy
purple; and nearer at hand the rock of Errisker showed in a wan, gray
light between the lowering sky and the squally sea; but Lunga, and
Fladda, and Staffa, and Iona, and even the long promontory of the Ross
of Mull, were all hidden away behind the driving mists of rain.

"Oh you lazy people!" Janet Macleod cried, cheerfully--she was not at
all frightened by the sudden storm. "I thought the wild beast had killed
you in the cave. And shall we have luncheon now, Keith, or go back at
once?"

He cast an eye towards the westward horizon and the threatening sky:
Janet noticed at once that he was rather pale.

"We will have luncheon as they pull us back," said he, in an absent way,
as if he was not quite sure of what was happening around him.

He got her into the boat, and then followed. The men, not sorry to get
away from these jagged rocks, took to their oars with a will. And then
he sat silent and distraught, as the two women, muffled up in their
cloaks, chatted cheerfully, and partook of the sandwiches and claret
that Janet had got out of the basket. "_Fhir a bhata_," the men sang to
themselves; and they passed under the great cliffs, all black and
thunderous now; and the white surf was springing over the rocks. Macleod
neither ate nor drank; but sometimes he joined in the conversation in a
forced way; and occasionally he laughed more loudly than the occasion
warranted.

"Oh yes," he said, "oh yes, you are becoming a good sailor now,
Gertrude. You have no longer any fear of the water."

"You will become like little Johnny Wickes, Miss White," the cousin
Janet said, "the little boy I showed you the other day. He has got to be
like a duck in his love for the water. And, indeed, I should have
thought he would have got a fright when Keith saved him from drowning;
but no."

"Did you save him from being drowned?" she said, turning to him. "And
you did not tell me the story?"

"It was no story," said he. "He fell into the water, and we picked him
up somehow;" and then he turned impatiently to the men, and said some
words to them in the Gaelic, and there was no more singing of the
Farewell to the Boatman after that.

They got home to Castle Dare before the rain came on; though, indeed, it
was but a passing shower, and it was s