A little flutter ran through the groups of expectant people keeping watch together upon the deck of the _Princess_. It was well to have got back safely, and without fog. And still, whispered the younger ones regretfully, the most delightful picnic in the world had come to an end, all too soon! Even Mrs. Verschoyle, emerging with salts-bottle, with chattering teeth, from the cabin, conceded that, for a yachting expedition, and although L’Ancresse Common would have been a thousand times more reasonable, their misadventures had been few. How comforting, murmured the poor lady, with a shudder, if it were not for the cold--this curiously increasing cold--to keep one’s eyes on the familiar harbour light, to realise that in another hour-and-a-half at latest, they would be all warm and asleep in their beds! But the cold increased still, and, for a midsummer night, was, undoubtedly, no common cold. It found its way through plaids and waterproofs, it got down throats, it caused fingers to become numbed. The mate was seen to button up his pilot jacket as he made his way with precipitate haste to the men on watch, the skipper moved from one foot to the other as he stood consulting his compass. Both skipper and mate glanced anxiously ahead, towards the west, where no horizon showed. ‘One would, scarcely have expected the stars to set so suddenly,’ observed Mrs. Verschoyle. In this lady’s youth it is probable that schoolgirls did not, as now, learn the exact sciences. ‘But depend upon it, the captain knows his way. The sailors are taking precautions, I heard the steward say so downstairs, by using the lead. And I remarked that they were seeing most attentively to the small boats. Besides, I have heard more than one gun fired. No sound so reassuring at sea as the report of a gun! A skilled old mariner like Ozanne would not be dependent on anything so chancy as the stars.’ ‘But, mamma, the harbour lighthouse has set, too,’ cried Rosie Verschoyle, who stood shivering at her mother’s side. ‘Everything is setting. I don’t see our own funnel. I don’t see the flower in your bonnet as clearly as I did two minutes ago.’ ‘I wish you would talk soberly, child. You know how much I dislike this kind of ill-timed chaff. Who ever heard of a lighthouse setting?’ observed Mrs. Verschoyle, with melancholy commonsense, ‘and why does the _Princess_ go so slow? The skipper, no doubt, has his reasons, still he might remember we are not all as fond of the sea as he is. I was never less nervous in my life, and--Sailor! Sailor!’ Mrs. Verschoyle flung herself before a figure, wrapped up in tarpaulin, crowned by a sou’-wester which loomed with gigantic proportions through the thick air. ‘Would you say, if you please, why the steamer goes so slow? And are we in danger--off our track or anything? And why does one seem all at once to lose sight of Castle Cornet lighthouse?’