start of the
_Tortoise_. It was eleven o'clock before she got under way. Frank had
the tiller. Priscilla, seated in the fore part of the boat, gave him
instruction in the art of steering. Running before a light breeze makes
no high demand upon the helmsman's skill. Frank learned to keep the
boat's head steady on her course and realised how small a motion of his
hand produced a considerable effect. The time came when the course
had to be altered. Priscilla, bent above all on discovering the new
camping-ground of the spies, kept in the main channel. There comes a
place where this turns northwards. Frank had to push down the tiller in
order to bring the boat on her new course. He began to understand
the meaning of what he did. The island of Inishrua lay under his
lee. Priscilla scanned its slope for the sight of a tent. Frank, now
beginning to enjoy his position thoroughly, let the boat away, eased off
his sheet and ran down the passage between Inishrua and Knockilaun, the
next island to the northward. Cattle browsed peacefully in the fields. A
dog rushed from a cottage door and barked. Two children came down to the
shore and gazed at the boat curiously. There was no encampment on either
island.

Frank pressed down the tiller and hauled in his sheet. Priscilla
insisted on his working the main sheet himself. He did it awkwardly and
slowly, having only one hand and some fingers of the other, which held
the tiller. Then he had his first experience of the joy of beating a
small boat against the wind. The passage between the islands is narrow
and the tacks were necessarily very short. Frank made all the mistakes
common to beginners, sailing at one moment many points off the wind,
at the next trying to sail with the luff of his lug and perhaps his
foresail flapping piteously. But he learned how to stay the boat and
became fascinated in guessing the point on the land which he might hope
to reach at the end of each tack. Priscilla kept him from becoming over
proud. She showed him, each time the boat went about, the spot which
with reasonably good steering he ought to have reached. It was always
many yards to windward.

At the end of the passage the boat stood on the starboard tack towards a
small round island which lay to the east of Inishrua.

"That's Inishgorm," said Priscilla. "I don't see how they can possibly
be there, for there's not a place on it to pitch a tent except the
extreme top of the island. But we may as well h