“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 he has heard for millions of years is not likely to awake him.  And Fladda and Lunga; surely this ghost-gray ship that steals by is not the old Umpire that used to visit them in the gay summer-time, with her red ensign flying, and the blue seas all around her?  But here is a dark object on the waters that is growing larger and larger as one approaches it.  The black outline of it is becoming sharp against the clear dome of stars.  There is a gloom around as one gets nearer and nearer the bays and cliffs of this lonely island; and now one hears the sound of breakers on the rocks.  Hamish and his men are on the alert.  The topsail has been lowered.  The heavy cable of the anchor lies ready by the windlass.  And then, as the Umpire glides into smooth water, and her head is brought round to the light breeze, away goes the anchor with a rattle that awakes a thousand echoes; and all the startled birds among the rocks are calling through the night—­the sea-pyots screaming shrilly, the curlews uttering their warning note, the herons croaking as they wing their slow flight away across the sea.  The Umpire has got to her anchorage at last.

And scarcely was the anchor down when they brought him a message from the English lady.  She was in the saloon, and wished to see him.  He could scarcely believe this; for it was now past midnight, and she had never come into the saloon before.  But he went down through the forecastle, and through his own stateroom, and opened the door of the saloon.