“That’s a likely story!” he cried.  “No wonder you don’t want to tell that to the police!”

From the bow came an exclamation, and Lady Moya rose to her feet.

“Phil!” she said, “you bore me!” She picked her way across the thwart to where Kinney sat at the stroke oar.

“My brother and I often row together,” she said; “I will take your place.”

When she had seated herself we were so near that her eyes looked directly into mine.  Drawing in the oars, she leaned upon them and smiled.

“Now, then,” she commanded, “tell us all about it.”

Before I could speak there came from behind her a sudden radiance, and as though a curtain had been snatched aside, the fog flew apart, and the sun, dripping, crimson, and gorgeous, sprang from the waters.  From the others there was a cry of wonder and delight, and from Lord Ivy a shriek of incredulous laughter.

Lady Moya clapped her hands joyfully and pointed past me.  I turned and looked.  Directly behind me, not fifty feet from us, was a shelving beach and a stone wharf, and above it a vine-covered cottage, from the chimney of which smoke curled cheerily.  Had the yawl, while Lady Moya was taking the oars, not swung in a circle, and had the sun not risen, in three minutes more we would have bumped ourselves into the State of Connecticut.  The cottage stood on one horn of a tiny harbor.  Beyond it, weather-beaten shingled houses, sail-lofts, and wharfs stretched cosily in a half-circle.  Back of them rose splendid elms and the delicate spire of a church, and from the unruffled surface of the harbor the masts of many fishing-boats.  Across the water, on a grass-grown point, a whitewashed light-house blushed in the crimson glory of the sun.  Except for an oyster-man in his boat at the end of the wharf, and the smoke from the chimney of his cottage, the little village slept, the harbor slept.  It was a picture of perfect content, confidence, and peace.  “Oh!” cried the Lady Moya, “how pretty, how pretty!”

Lord Ivy swung the bow about and raced toward the wharf.  The others stood up and cheered hysterically.

At the sound and at the sight of us emerging so mysteriously from the fog, the man in the fishing-boat raised himself to his full height and stared as incredulously as though he beheld a mermaid.  He was an old man, but straight and tall, and the oysterman’s boots stretching to his hips made him appear even taller than he was.  He had a bristling white beard and his face was tanned to a fierce copper color, but his eyes were blue and young and gentle.  They lit suddenly with excitement and sympathy.

“Are you from the Patience?” he shouted.  In chorus we answered that we were, and Ivy pulled the yawl alongside the fisherman’s boat.

But already the old man had turned and, making a megaphone of his hands, was shouting to the cottage.

“Mother!” he cried, “mother, here are folks from the wreck.  Get coffee and blankets and—­and bacon—­and eggs!”