“Hamish,” said he, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, “I don’t like the look of this evening.  Did you say the sheiling was still on the island?”

“Oh yes, Sir Keith,” said Hamish, with great joy; for he thought his advice was going to be taken, after all.

“Well, now, you know the gales, when they begin, sometimes last for two or three or four days; and I will ask you to see that Christina takes a good store of things to the sheiling before the darkness comes on.  Take plenty of things now, Hamish, and put them in the sheiling, for I am afraid this is going to be a wild night.”

Now indeed all the red light had gone away; and as the sun went down there was nothing but a spectral whiteness over the sea and the sky; and the atmosphere was so close and sultry that it seemed to suffocate one.  Moreover, there was a dead calm; if they had wanted to get away from this exposed place, how could they?  They could not get into the gig and pull this great yacht over to Loch Tua.

It was with a light heart that Hamish set about this thing; and Christina forthwith filled a hamper with tinned meats, and bread, and whisky, and what not.  And fuel was taken ashore, too; and candles, and a store of matches.  If the gales were coming on, as appeared likely from this ominous-looking evening, who could tell how many days and nights the young master—­and the English lady, too, if he desired her company—­might not have to stay ashore, while the men took the chance of the sea with this yacht, or perhaps seized the occasion of some lull to make for some place of shelter?  There was Loch Tua, and there was the bay at Bunessan, and there was the little channel called Polterriv, behind the rocks opposite Iona.  Any shelter at all was better than this exposed place, with the treacherous anchorage.

Hamish and Duncan Cameron returned to the yacht.

“Will you go ashore now, Sir Keith?” the old man said.

“Oh no; I am not going ashore yet.  It is not yet time to run away, Hamish.”

He spoke in a friendly and pleasant fashion, though Hamish, in his increasing alarm, thought it no proper time for jesting.  They hauled the gig up to the davits, however, and again the yacht lay in dead silence in this little bay.

The evening grew to dusk; the only change visible in the spectral world of pale yellow-white mist was the appearance in the sky of a number of small, detached bulbous-looking clouds of a dusky blue-gray.  They had not drifted hither, for there was no wind.  They had only appeared.  They were absolutely motionless.  But the heat and the suffocation in this atmosphere became almost insupportable.  The men, with bare heads, and jerseys unbuttoned at the neck, were continually going to the cask of fresh water beside the windlass.  Nor was there any change when the night came on.  If anything, the night was hotter than the evening had been.  They waited in silence what might come of this ominous calm.