with a little shiver.

It had begun to blow in earnest. The wind, falling over the cliff,
played mournfully in the rigging. A gust of rain lashed the skylight.
Swells from the open rocked the schooner.

"Blowin' up," said Billy Topsail.

"How long have you knowed Sir Archibald?" the skipper asked.

Archie laughed.

"Off an' on for about sixteen years, I 'low?" said the skipper.

Archie nodded shortly.

"'Ark t' the wind!" Bagg whispered.

"'Twill be all in a tumble off the cape," said Jimmie Grimm.

"Know Sir Archibald _well_?" the skipper pursued.

Archie sat down in disgust.

"Pretty intimate, eh?" asked the skipper.

The boy laughed again; and then all at once--all in a flash--his
ill-humour and suspicion vanished. His father not play fair? How
preposterous the fancy had been! Of _course_, he was playing fair!
But somebody wasn't. And _who_ wasn't?

"It is queer," said he. "What do you make of it, Bill?"

"I been thinkin'," the skipper replied heavily.

"Have you fathomed it?"

"Well," the skipper drawled, "I've thunk along far enough t' want t'
look into it farder. I'd say," he added, "t' put back t' Conch."

"It's going to blow, Skipper Bill."

It had already begun to blow. The wind was moaning aloft. The
long-drawn melancholy penetrated to the cozy cabin. In the shelter of
the cliff though she was, the schooner tossed in the spent seas that
came swishing in from the open.

"Well," the skipper drawled, "I guess the wind won't take the hair off
a body; an' I 'low we can make Conch afore the worst of it."

"I'm with the skipper," said Billy Topsail.

"Me, too," said Jimmie Grimm.

Bagg had nothing to say; he seldom had, poor fellow! in a gale of
wind.

"I've a telegram to send," said Archie.

It was a message of apology. Archie went ashore with a lighter heart
to file it. What an unkindly suspicious fool he had been! he
reflected, heartily ashamed of himself.

"Something for you, sir," said the agent.

Sir Archibald's telegram was put in the boy's hand; and when this had
been read aboard the _Spot Cash_--and when the schooner had rounded
Cape John and was taking full advantage of a sudden change of wind to
the southwest--Archie and the skipper and the crew felt very well
indeed, thank you!

* * * * *

It blew hard in the afternoon--harder than Bill o' Burnt Bay had
surmised. The wind had a slap to it that troubled the little _Spot
Cash_.