bh-Artach men had lit their beacon for the
coming night. The _Umpire_ lay and idly rolled in this dead calm;
Macleod paced up and down the deck in the solemn stillness. Hamish threw
a tarpaulin over the skylight of the saloon, to cover the bewildering
light from below; and then, as the time went slowly by, darkness came
over the land and the sea. They were alone with the night, and the
lapping waves, and the stars.

About ten o'clock there was a loud rattling of blocks and cordage--the
first puff of a coming breeze had struck her. The men were at their
posts in a moment; there were a few sharp, quick orders from Hamish; and
presently the old _Umpire_, with her great boom away over her quarter,
was running free before a light southeasterly wind.

"Ay, ay!" said Hamish, in sudden gladness, "we will soon be by
Ardalanish Point with a fine wind like this, Sir Keith; and if you would
rather hef no lights on her--well, it is a clear night whateffer; and
the _Dunara_ she will hef up her lights."

The wind came in bits of squalls, it is true; but the sky overhead
remained clear, and the _Umpire_ bowled merrily along. Macleod was still
on deck. They rounded the Ross of Mull, and got into the smoother waters
of the Sound. Would any of the people in the cottages at Drraidh see
this gray ghost of a vessel go gliding past over the dark water? Behind
them burned the yellow eye of Dubh-Artach; before them a few small red
points told them of the Iona cottages; and still this phantom gray
vessel held on her way. The _Umpire_ was nearing her last anchorage.

And still she steals onward, like a thief in the night She has passed
through the Sound; she is in the open sea again; there is a calling of
startled birds from over the dark bosom of the deep. Then far away they
watch the light of a steamer; but she is miles from their course; they
cannot even hear the throb of her engines.

It is another sound they hear--a low booming as of distant thunder. And
that black thing away on their right--scarcely visible over the darkened
waves--is that the channelled and sea-bird haunted Staffa, trembling
through all her caves under the shock of the smooth Atlantic surge? For
all the clearness of the starlit sky, there is a wild booming of waters
all around her rocks; and the giant caverns answer; and the thunder
shudders out to the listening sea.

The night drags on. The Dutchman is fast asleep in his vast Atlantic
bed; the dull roar of the waves