Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/176

So they sailed from the island one morning at dawn and for a week they picked their way down the windward passages. At times they lay hidden in deep harbours of which the Old One knew the secret; and again they stood boldly out to sea and put behind them many leagues of their journey. And thus progressing, one night, as they worked south against a warm breeze scented with the odour of flowers, they sighted on the horizon a dark low land above which rose dimly the shape of a distant mountain.

The men gathered about master and mate and Jacob, then Harry Malcolm went swarming up the rigging and from the maintopsail yard studied the dim bulk of the mountain. After a time he cried down to them, "Douse all lights and hold her on her course!”

For an hour they stood toward the land, then Malcolm came down from aloft smiling, and there ran through the ship a great wave of talk. Though a man had never sailed those seas before, he would not have found the reason for their talk hard to guess, since there were few secrets on board. Time and distance had made less the grumbling occasioned by the disastrous brush with the Porcupine and by the littleness of the profit got from the pink, and they had warmed their hearts with the Old One’s tales.

Bearing to the west, the Rose of Devon skirted the dark shore for miles; but the master and mate were growing anxious lest dawn overtake them before they should reach the hiding-place they sought; and when they rounded a certain wooded point and sailed into a deep, secluded bay where a ship might lie for a year unseen, — which put an end to their fears, — they let go their anchors with all good will and furled their sails: