Dawn was breaking. The dark shadow of Criffel was turning to a ghostly grey, and on the face of the water we could see, about half a mile away, a little barque lying at anchor. Hector lit a candle, and taking off his bonnet passed it in front of the light twice. Then he blew the candle out. His signal had been seen; a little answering light flashed for a moment on the deck of the barque, and was gone. Then a man dropped into the boat that nestled under the lee of the barque, and began to pull towards the shore. As he drove the boat on to the sand we slipped out of our shelter. I took Mary in my arms, and, wading out into the tawny water, I placed her in the boat. Then I jumped in. Hector, close behind me, flung a leg into the boat: then I heard him sigh so deeply that I thought he had bruised himself. I turned, and saw him withdraw his leg, and seize the boat by the prow. With a mighty shove he sent her off the sand into the deep water, and stood erect gazing after her. "Good-bye," he said, with a tremor in his voice, as he took off his bonnet. "Good-bye?" I exclaimed doubtingly. "What do you mean? I thought you were coming with us?" "So I was," he answered. "But I remembered Peter: and I’m gaun back. My work’s no’ feenished yet." And with that he splashed out of the water and disappeared into the copse. But we saw him again. When we were safely on board the barque, and the anchor was up, and the skipper and his men were setting their sails to the breeze, Mary and I stood on the poop and looked anxiously back to the little wood by the water-side. A figure came out of the shadows and waved a hand. We waved back in answer, and the figure disappeared. *CHAPTER XLV* *ON THE WINGS OF THE SEA-MEW* The wind and the tides favoured us, and the little barque took to the sea like the bird whose name she bore. Before us a rosy path, painted by the rising sun, stretched into the distance. The soft winds of the dawn filled the brown sails and carried us onward, and the little waves patted the sides of our boat as though they were the hands of the sea-maidens, come from out of the deep to cheer us on our way. We sat together in the stern of the boat, our feet resting on a heap of tarry cordage. I had wrapped her plaid about her to keep my Mary warm--and under its folds I had made her hands captive in one of mine. "I can hardly believe it," she said. "It is amaist ower guid to be true: to ha’e you by my side, my ain man, when I thocht you were deid." "And I," I answered, "thought that I had lost you for ever. Many a time, of a night, I have looked up at the stars and chosen the brightest of them, and called it Mary’s star: because I thought it must be your dwelling-place. And all the while you were not dead at all." "And were you really very, very sorry when you thocht that I was deid?" she asked, with a twinkle in her eyes.