Mr. Harland heard this indifferently.

“Perhaps Catherine wished for a sail,”—­he answered.  “There are plenty on board to manage the vessel.  You’re not anxious?”

“Oh, not at all, sir, if you are satisfied,”—­Derrick answered.

Mr. Harland stretched himself luxuriously in his chair.

“Personally, I don’t mind where the ‘Diana’ has gone to for the moment,”—­he said, with a laugh—­“I’m particularly comfortable where I am.  Santoris!”

“Here!” And Santoris, who had stepped aside to give some order to one of his men, came up at the call.

“What do you say to leaving me on board while you and my little friend go and see your sunset effect on Loch Coruisk by yourselves?”

Santoris heard this suggestion with an amused look.

“You don’t care for sunsets?”

“Oh yes, I do,—­in a way.  But I’ve seen so many of them—­”

“No two alike”—­put in Santoris.

“I daresay not.  Still, I don’t mind missing a few.  Just now I should like a sound sleep rather than a sunset.  It’s very unsociable, I know,—­but—­” here he half closed his eyes and seemed inclined to doze off there and then.

Santoris turned to me.

“What do you say?  Can you put up with my company for an hour or two and allow me to be your guide to Loch Coruisk?  Or would you, too, rather not see the sunset?”,

Our eyes met.  A thrill of mingled joy and fear ran through me, and again I felt that strange sense of power and dominance which had previously overwhelmed me.

“Indeed, I have set my heart on going to Loch Coruisk”—­I answered, lightly—­“And I cannot let you off your promise to take me there!  We will leave Mr. Harland to his siesta.”

“You’re sure you do not mind?”—­said Harland, then, opening his eyes drowsily—­“You will be perfectly safe with Santoris.”

I smiled.  I did not need that assurance.  And I talked gaily with Captain Derrick on the subject of the ‘Diana’ and the course of her possible cruise, while he scanned the waters in search of her,—­and I watched with growing impatience our gradual approach to Loch Scavaig, which in the bright afternoon looked scarcely less dreary than at night, especially now that the ‘Diana’ was no longer there to give some air of human occupation to the wild and barren surroundings.  The sun was well inclined towards the western horizon when the ‘Dream’ reached her former moorings and noiselessly dropped anchor, and about twenty minutes later the electric launch belonging to the vessel was lowered and I entered it with Santoris, a couple of his men managing the boat as it rushed through the dark steel-coloured water to the shore.

VIII

VISIONS