The saloon of the Merle was a spacious cabin, paneled in Cuban cedar. Along both sides ran transoms cushioned in dark green corduroy, which contrasted pleasantly with the red of the woodwork. On either side of the companion-way were big closets, the doors of which, framing large mirrors, opened forward against the after ends of the transoms. Both to port and to starboard the cabin was lined with lockers for flags, charts, and bottles, except where the recessed bookcases came in the middle. Large nickeled Argand lamps to port and starboard on the for'ard bulkhead illuminated the interior. Sheathed in cedar, the butt of the schooner's mainmast stood in the fore part of the saloon; and aft from it ran a mahogany table around which were placed some comfortable-looking chairs. All in all, the impression of power and grace which one received from regarding the outside of the Merle was equaled by the feeling of comfort, and, indeed, almost of luxury, one had upon viewing her below decks.

It was in this pleasant retreat that Jack had settled himself in less than a minute after his arrival on the yacht. The good skipper, who had kept an almost fatherly eye on the youth ever since he was old enough to "fist a rope," sat uneasily on the edge of the divan on the port side. Jack, sprawled out on the opposite transom, lit a cigarette, and looked up at the skylight.

"My aunt! But I'm glad to be aboard again," he declared. "How is everything? What sort of a run down did you have?"

"Pretty fair, sir," returned the master. "We went to Marblehead, and then to Portsmouth. Mr. Drake, he spent the time in seeing his friends. Then we run to Portland, and then to Boothbay. We run in here yesterday. Nothin' much to tell of on the cruise."

"You've made schedule time," Jack commented. "You are here just when you were due."

"Yes, we got here," Camper assented, "though 't one time, when I see the stores that had to come aboard, I doubted if we should get started for a week."

"More stores than usual?" queried Jack, with a little spark of interest in his eye.

"Well, Mr. Drake, he 'lowed that last year when we got becalmed down the coast some of the provisions fell short, and he vowed he'd never get caught in that shape again; so this time he's stocked up fit to do the Nor'west Passage. He's got every kind of a thing to eat that man ever put into tins, you may bet your life."

"Trust him to have an eye to the galley," laughed Jack, reflecting how satisfactory a complement to the plain provisions waiting at the Island would be this extensive assortment of choice eatables. "Well, I'm for sleeping aboard. Can you give me a lift with my luggage?"

Everything he had said since he came on board had been preliminary to this. His one chance of getting the sailing-master to a safe distance lay in inducing Camper to go ashore on an errand. To this question the skipper replied, Yankee fashion, with another.

"Where is it, sir?"

"Go to Mullin's and tell 'em you're from me;—you'd better do it yourself, Camper;—and get them to give you a steamer-trunk and two bags. Do you know the place? It's the only boarding-house there is in the village. Anybody can tell you."

"I know it, sir. 'Bout a cable's length up the road."

"Yes; that's it. I don't think you'll find the trunk heavy," Jack went on, with a secret inclination to speak very fast and a consciousness that he must appear cool and deliberate. "Of course you'll take a couple of men to tote it, but I don't like to send an ordinary seaman up there."

He wondered what he should reply if asked why not; but Camper, who had long been trained under President Drake to habits of unquestioning obedience, replied with perfect simplicity:—

"All right, sir, I'll have it aboard in half an hour. Your old stateroom's all ready, I believe. You just ring for the steward if you want anything, sir."

"Thanks," responded Jack, taking a book from its place as he spoke, as if with the intention of settling himself to read.

Camper withdrew, and Jack listened eagerly till he heard footsteps on the deck, the rattle of the davit-tackle, the splash of the boat alongside, and then the rhythm of receding oars. The moment he was sure of not being seen by the skipper he closed his book with a bang, flung it on the table, looked at his watch, and went hurriedly on deck. In the lee of the mainmast he paused to light a fresh cigarette, and then began untying the cover of the mainsail, loosening the points and pulling them through the grommets. As he worked his way aft, he suddenly thought he heard the sound of oars. He stopped to make sure: there could be no doubt of it; some one was pulling toward the Merle. In a flash Jack saw his scheme ruined in any one of a thousand ways. He set his teeth and ran over rapidly in his head the possibilities, but without reaching any satisfactory conclusion. Then he walked aft, and putting his hands on the rail, bent over the yacht's port quarter and peered into the fog. With a feeling of relief he realized from the sound and time of the strokes that the approaching boat was a small one, and was pulled by one pair of oars only. He had hardly decided this when he discerned the cause of his alarm, and almost laughed to see nothing more formidable than a small pea-pod, pulled by a boy. The rower came alongside and rested on his oars, while Jack watched him curiously.

"Is that Mr. Drake's vessel?" inquired the boy.

"Yes," Jack returned. "What's wanted?"

"The postmaster said 'f I'd bring ye these letters ye'd give me a quarter," replied the youthful oarsman.

"Mr. Drake isn't aboard now," said Jack.

"Well, ye c'n give me my quarter jes' the same," the boy rejoined. "I'll let ye hev the letters, 'n' he'll make it right with ye later. He lef' word this evenin' for his mail to be brung him every time it come, an' 't was that foggy the Sylvy got in late from Rocklan', 'n' I couldn't get roun' to bring it out before. 'Twan't sorted till after Mr. Staples hed his supper."

"All right," Jack said hastily. "Come alongside."

He feared to create suspicion, and felt that the only thing to do at the moment was to get rid of the boy. He gave the youth a quarter, and took the letters in exchange, mentally saying to himself that he hoped they were not of importance. The boy went pulling away as if in most unusual elation, and Castleport, thrusting the letters into the breast pocket of his coat, returned to his work. He had not quite finished untying the points when he heard Jerry's hail from the mooring.

"Merle, ahoy! Ho-ro aboard the Merle!" came booming through the fog in Taberman's most stentorian tones.

Jack placed himself in the companion-way as if just emerging from the cabin, and waited for another hail.

"Merle ahoy! Aho-o-o-y aboard the Merle!" again rang through the thick night above the sound of the wind, the water, and the cordage.

"Hallo-o-o!" bawled back Castleport.

"Send ... boat ... ashore!" came the voice.

Jerry was apparently able to outroar all the bulls of Bashan, and was doing his worst.

"Aye—oh!" Jack yelled in reply, and walked quickly forward.

The steward had heard the rumpus, and was standing in the forecastle companion. Capless, and wearing his white jacket, he gaped about like a quizzical seal.

"Some one hailing from the shore," said Jack shortly; "want a boat. Don't know what you'll take unless you go in the longboat. Tell the men."

"Beg pardon, sir; there's only me and the cook and two hands aboard. It'll take us all to pull the longboat."

The steward had a slow, exasperating whine which always irritated Jack.

"Then you'll have to take an oar," Jack responded roughly. "There's some one ashore waiting, and I said I'd send a boat. Get a move on. I'll watch ship."

The steward went below grumbling, but soon reappeared with the cook and the two hands. With some delay they got off in the longboat, pulling wretchedly toward the shore and nagging at each other. As he stepped to the foot of the mainmast to take the halyards off the pins, Jack fervently thanked his stars for the heaviness of the boat and the evident fact that both cook and steward were hopeless duffers with an oar. He cleared the halyards with nervous fingers, stripped off the cover of the mainsail, and undid the canvas stops with which it was furled. Then he turned to the headsails, and had all clear before his ear again caught the sound of oars. He ran aft, and called out guardedly. Dave's voice answered him, and then he heard Taberman urging his companion to quicken his stroke. In the mist Castleport could dimly distinguish the heavy boats slowly nearing the yacht. It was all the men could do to get them alongside and make them fast astern. Once this was accomplished, all hands turned eagerly to the still harder labor of getting the Merle under weigh.

"Jim," ordered Castleport, "skip along for'ard and take down that riding-light. Set it on deck so it won't show out-board. Dave, you get up the boat-boom. Haul it right up, 'thout minding the guys! Lively, now!"

As Dave and Jim hurried forward to execute these orders, Jack himself stepped aft, took off the binnacle-cover, and got the lamps lit and in their places.

"All hands for'ard on the anchor!" he sang out, rapping his shins on the cockpit combings as he scrambled out and ran along the deck. "We'll make sail when we get out the mudhook. 'F we try to get her mains'l up, they'll hear us all over the place. We'll drop down under heads'ls. Catch ahold there!"

The Merle was riding at her port bower in some six fathoms of water. She had out a good bit of scope, however, and between the eight hands which gripped the quarter-inch chain and the anchor to which it was bent were some ten fathoms to be "handed over." In the light of the big Fresnel anchor-lantern upon the deck, the men, silent, rigid, braced back, strained steadily. For a full half-minute there was no gain whatever, but then one link of the chain came to the brazen lip of the hawse-hole with a sharp rap. The men grunted and hissed, bringing every muscle into play. Taberman was foremost on the chain. He faced the hawse-hole squarely, his legs wide apart, and his head thrown back. His face, even as seen by the white light of the Fresnel, was a dark brick-red, and out of the left corner of his mouth his tongue protruded. Dave was behind him, his left knee bent, and his right leg straight from toe to hip. He hung on savagely, his face unnaturally blank; his hair, damp with fog and sweat, clung to his brown forehead and temples. The third man was Jim, lying back in a strange posture, as though the small of his back were invisibly supported. His cheeks were white; his breathing was inaudible.

With a little salvo of metallic snaps a scant dozen links more came in. Jack was last on the chain, and was separated from the man next him by a space greater than that between any other pair, so that he could when necessary take a turn of the slack about one of the brass-capped bollards at his side. His body was tense and rigid, his face and forehead full of odd puckers and lines. He was white at the lips, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down. His nose moved nervously with almost the suggestion of a rabbit's. One more link came in.

"Better take it on the winch," gasped Jerry.

"Damn it,—pull!" cried Jack.

Jim grunted and Dave drew a breath through his closed teeth with a sharp whistling sound. Suddenly the chain rattled in so quickly that they could almost over-hand it. The Merle was moving at last.

"Smartly!" Jack cried. "Smartly, and we'll make her trip it out herself."

The four hauled lustily.

"Nigh up and down," called Jerry.

Jack threw a couple of bights of the chain over the bollard, and held it. The big yacht forged ahead slowly into the eye of the wind, carried along by the impetus given her by the handing of the chain. The bits creaked a little, the chain grew very taut and vibrant. The Merle checked up and began to drift back.

"Now then!" cried Jack. "Lay along!"

Each one of them grasped the chain with a fierce vigor, as a man might seize the throat of his enemy, while Jerry burst into an explosive whaling chantey, and the men fell into time with its rhythm.

"Here she comes!" he shouted in the midst of a stave, as, all at once, the anchor was broken out.

Jack dropped his end of the chain and ran aft to mind the wheel, leaving the men to take in the rest of the slack. The headsails were up in stops, but before breaking them out it was necessary to lay the yacht round on the port tack. As she was under sternway, Jack whirled the spokes over to port, and so—for her steering-gear was "balanced"—brought her head around to the southward. When he felt the wind on his left cheek, he put his hand to his mouth and shouted.

"Break out fore-staysail!" he bellowed. "Trim it a-weather!—Hang on to the weather-sheet till she falls well off!"

With a great slatting and booming of canvas the schooner payed off rapidly.

"Catch on to that port sheet there!" shouted Jack. "Port, I say, port! Make fast! Not too flat! Give her all she'll use!"

The Merle was now moving slowly before the wind.

"Break out the jibs," ordered Jack, "both jibs! That's good. Make fast!"

The wind had so freshened that the yacht began to move in earnest. At this juncture voices, faint but frantic, were heard hailing from astern.

"Merle ahoy! Ahoy-oy-oy! Show—light! A-hoy-oy-oy—'board the Merle!"

"Hear the steward?" called Jack to Jerry, who was at work with the head-sheet cleats.

"Hear him!" laughed Jerry. "His music's a merry send-off."

"Ahoy-oy-oy!" came the voice again, fainter and full of a dismayed distress that made them both break out afresh into derisive laughter. "Ahoy! Anchor! An-chor—Anch"—

The despairing wail died away on the freshening wind.

"Hope they won't poke round in the fog all night looking for the Merle," Jack said gayly. "I never did like that steward, though."

A moment or two later, as the yacht was nearing the entrance of the Thoroughfare, Jack called for Dave. The man came aft.

"See here, Dave," Castleport asked, suddenly grown grave; "we've got more weather than we counted on. Can you pilot this yacht round Vinal Haven in this fog?"

"Reck'n I kin, sir," Dave replied with pleasing assurance. "Man and boy I've worked round these shores twelve years."

"Very well, then,—come down here and take her. Her gear's balanced: put the wheel over same way you want to swing her head. She's quick as a flash. If you want the chart"—

But Dave shook his head with a grin.

"Well, anyhow," said Jack, turning to leave him, "there's your compass."

"That don't bother me none," replied the intrepid Dave, with a glance at once scornful and defiant at the smart binnacle. "I go mos' gin'rally by the smell," he added by way of explanation.

"All right," laughed Jack. "Handle her carefully."

"One thing, sir,—how much does she draw?"

"Twelve feet," returned Jack.

Then he stepped up on to the deck, and the Merle sped on into the black night.