A little more sail was accordingly shown, and the boat tore through the water at what seemed to Archie to be tremendous speed; but she was shipping but little water now, for though the great waves as they neared her stern seemed over and over again to Archie as if they would break upon her and send her instantly to the bottom, the stout boat always lifted lightly upon them until he at length felt free from apprehension on that score.  Presently the fisherman pointed out a dark mass over their other bow.

“That is Jura,” he said; “we are fair for the channel, lads, but you must take in the sail again to the smallest rag, for the wind will blow through the gap between the islands with a force fit to tear the mast out of her.”

Through the rest of his life Archie Forbes regarded that passage between Islay and Jura as the most tremendous peril he had ever encountered.  Strong as the wind had been before, it was as nothing to the force with which it swept down the strait —­ the height of the waves was prodigious, and the boat, as it passed over the crest of a wave, seemed to plunge down a very abyss.  The old fisherman crouched low in the boat, holding the helm, while the other three lay on the planks in the bottom.  Speech was impossible, for the loudest shouts would have been drowned in the fury of the storm.  In half an hour the worst was over.  They were through the straits and out in the open sea again, but Islay now made a lee for them, and the sea, high as it was, was yet calm in comparison to the tremendous waves in the Strait of Jura.  More sail was hoisted again, and in an hour the fisherman said, “Thank God, there are the islands.”  The day was already fading, and Archie could with difficulty make out the slightly dark mass to which the helm pointed.

“Is that Colonsay?” he asked.

“It is Oronsay,” the fisherman said.  “The islands are close together and seem as if they had once been one, but have been cleft asunder by the arm of a giant.  The strait between them is very narrow, and once within it we shall be perfectly sheltered.  We must make as close to the point of the island as we can well go, so as not to touch the rocks, and then turn and enter the strait.  If we keep out any distance we shall be blown past the entrance, and then our only remaining chance is to try and run her on to Colonsay, and take the risk of being drowned as she is dashed upon the rocks.”

The light had almost faded when they ran along at the end of Oronsay.  Archie shuddered as he saw the waves break upon the rocks and fly high up into the air, and felt how small was the chance of their escape should they be driven on a coast like that.  They were but fifty yards from the point when they came abreast of its extremity; then the fisherman put down the helm and turned her head towards the strait, which opened on their left.

“Down with the sail and mast, lads, and out with your oars; we must row her in.”