“What on earth is the use of going there?”

“I do not know, mem.”

“Is Sir Keith going to keep me on board this boat forever?”

“I do not know, mem.”

Christina had to leave the cabin just then; when she returned she said, with some little hesitation,

“If I wass mekking so bold, mem, ass to say this to you:  Why are you not asking the questions of Sir Keith himself?  He will know all about it; and if you were to come into the saloon, mem—­”

“Do you think I would enter into any communication with him after his treatment of me?” said Miss White, indignantly, “No; let him atone for that first.  When he has set me at liberty, then I will speak with him; but never so long as he keeps me shut up like a convict.”

“I wass only saying, mem,” Christina answered, with great respect, “that if you were wishing to know where we were going, Sir Keith will know that; but how can I know it?  And you know, mem, Sir Keith has not shut you up in this cabin; you hef the saloon, if you would please to hef it.”

“Thank you, I know!” rejoined Miss White.  “If I choose, my gaol may consist of two rooms instead of one.  I don’t appreciate that amount of liberty.  I want to be set ashore.”

“That I hef nothing to do with, mem,” Christina said, humbly, proceeding with her work.

Miss White, being left to think over these things, was beginning to believe that, after all, her obduracy was not likely to be of much service to her.  Would it not be wiser to treat with the enemy—­perhaps to outwit him by a show of forgiveness?  Here they were approaching the end of the voyage—­at least, Christina seemed to intimate as much; and if they were not exactly within call of friends, they would surely be within rowing distance of some inhabited island, even Gometra, for example.  And if only a message could be sent to Castle Dare?  Lady Macleod and Janet Macleod were women.  They would not countenance this monstrous thing.  If she could only reach them, she would be safe.

The rose-pink died away from the long promontories, and was succeeded by a sombre gray; the glory in the west sank down; a wan twilight came over the sea and the sky; and a small golden star, like the point of a needle, told where the Dubh-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.