ields, that the attitude of the stalwart form and gray
head gave him his first real insight into the pain the parting had
cost--into the strong, sad disapproval which in the father's mind lay
behind the nominal consent. Caius saw it then, or, at least, he saw
enough of it to feel a sharp pang of regret and self-reproach. He felt
himself to be an unworthy son, and to have wronged the best of fathers.
Whether he was doing right or wrong in proceeding upon his mission he
did not know. So in this mind he set sail.

CHAPTER II.

THE ISLES OF ST. MAGDALEN.

The schooner went out into the night and sailed for the north star. The
wind was strong that filled her sails; the ocean turbulent, black and
cold, with the glittering white of moonlight on the upper sides of the
waves. The little cabin in the forecastle was so hot and dirty that to
Caius, for the first half of the night, it seemed preferable almost to
perish of cold upon the deck rather than rock in a narrow bunk below.
The deck was a steep inclined plane, steady, but swept constantly with
waves, as an incoming tide sweeps a beach. Caius was compelled to crouch
by what support he could find, and, lying thus, he was glad to cover
himself up to the chin with an unused sail, peeping forth at the gale
and the moonlight as a child peeps from the coverings of its cot.

With the small hours of the night came a cold so intense that he was
driven to sleep in the cabin where reigned the small iron stove that
brewed the skipper's odorous pot. After he had slept a good way into the
next day, he came up again to find the gale still strong and the
prospect coloured now with green of wave and snow of foam, blue of sky
and snow of winged cloud. The favourable force was still pushing them
onward toward the invisible north star.

It was on the evening of that day that they saw the islands; five or six
hilly isles lay in a half-circle. The schooner entered this bay from the
east. Before they came near the purple hills they had sighted a fleet of
island fishing boats, and now, as night approached, all these made also
for the same harbour. The wind bore them all in, they cutting the water
before them, gliding round the point of the sand-bar, making their way
up the channel of the bay in the lessening light, a chain of gigantic
sea-birds with white or ruddy wings.

All around the bay the islands lay, their hills a soft red purple in the
light of a clear November evening. In the b