Chamberlain pulled a great oar, and was, in fact, far superior to Aleck in point of skill; but his stroke was not well adapted to the choppy waves inshore.  He had learned it on the sleepy Cam, where the long, gliding blade counts best.  The men stayed ashore a long time, disappearing entirely beyond the clump of trees that screened the outbuildings.  When they reappeared, an old man was with them, following them down to the boat.  Then the white handkerchief appeared, and the boat started on its return.

Aleck profited by Chamberlain’s work, and made the boat leap forward by a shorter, almost jerky stroke.  He came back easily with five minutes to spare.

“Good work!” said Mr. Chamberlain.  “You have me beaten, and you’ll get the bachelors’ buttons; but you had the tide with you.”

“Nonsense!  I had the lobsters extra!” asserted Aleck.

“Well, if you had been born an Englishman, we’d make an oarsman out of you yet!”

“Huh!” said Aleck.

But they had news to tell the ladies, and while they were having their dinner their thoughts were turned to another matter.  The island, it appeared, had for some years been abandoned by its owner, and its only inhabitant was a gray and grizzly old man, known to the region as the hermit.  His fancy was to keep a light burning always by night in the landward window of his cabin, so as to warn sailors off the dangerous headland.  There was no lighthouse in the vicinity, and by a kindly consent the people on the neighboring islands and on the mainland opposite encouraged his benevolent delusion, if delusion it might be called.  They contrived to send him provisions at least once a week; and they had supplied him with a flag which, it was understood, he would fly in case he was in actual need.  So, alone with his cow and his fowls, the old hermit spent his days, winter and summer, tending his lamp when the dark came on.

Aleck and Mr. Chamberlain had picked up some of this information at the last port which the Sea Gull made; but what was of new and real interest to them now was the story which the old man told them of a castaway on the island a few days before.

“All hands had abandoned the yacht just before she went down, it appears.  The owner was robbed by his own men and marooned on the hermit’s island—­that’s the gist of it,” said Aleck.

“The hermit said the man wouldn’t eat off his table,” went on Mr. Chamberlain; “but asked him for raw eggs and ate them outdoors.  Said that except when he asked for eggs he never spoke without cursing.  At least, the hermit couldn’t understand what he said, so he thought it was cursing.  And while the old man was talking,” added Chamberlain resentfully, “that blooming peacock squawked like a demon.”

“The yacht that went down, according to the man, was the Jeanne D’Arc,” said Aleck, who had been grave enough between all their light-hearted talk.  “I didn’t tell you, Chamberlain, that my cousin, my old chum, went off quite unexpectedly on a boat called the Jeanne D’Arc.  Where he went or what for, I don’t know.  Of course, it may have been another Jeanne D’Arc; it probably was.  But it troubles me.”