It was not much to grant, she thought, when she might never see him again. So they went out together over the moors, down by the little pools where the water showed their shadows, blended one into the other, upon the cairns where they sate together, looking out over the sea. Together, always together, Eustace and she, as it had been at the beginning. And this was the end, the very end. Meanwhile the trio in the boat set forth gaily; the professor very straight in the back, and with no little style giving the stroke, whilst Arthur Weeks, gloomily polite, paddled in the bows, debarred from even a fair sight of his beloved. The full flood-tide lapped at the furthermost scallop of seaweed on the shingly shore, and touched the sea-pinks cresting the rocks. "Couldn't you pull a leetle harder?" suggested the captain drily, when the professor paused in a long sentence to take breath. "I don't want to hustle anybody, but we have only just got time to manage it. We are making a good deal of leeway, and the channel north is a bit dangerous." Cynthia glanced nervously towards the Pole. "Oh, yes! please, Mr. Endorwick, pull harder. We can talk when we get to the island." Easier said than done. The perspiration poured down the professor's face, and bow kept her head straight as a die; yet still the boat failed to respond. As they crept along slowly, the channel between the headlands and the island began to open up, showing the still, oily water which tells of swift current. "We are too far north," said the captain, resting on his oar a moment. "The tide can't have been quite slack when we started. However, it doesn't matter; for the current here will take us south in no time." The professor pausing too, they drifted idly. "That's the landing-place, Miss Strong," went on the speaker. "Yonder, where the bents almost touch the water, and that square thing behind is a stone cof--" he paused abruptly. "Why, what the devil! we're drifting north--due north. By George, we are, though." In good sooth they were--drifting north like a feather. "North! impossible--the current runs south at flood. Stay--by Heaven, I remember--Ronald said something about a change at the equinox. Quick, man alive. Pull, pull hard! Once she gets beyond those rocks, we will have the dickens and all to keep her out of the eddy. It runs like a race--higher up--amongst sunken--rocks." The last words came in jerks as he set all his strength to the oar. The boat spun round with the point of the professor's oar as axis; spun round, drifting as it span. "Damn it all!" shouted the man of war busy on the rowlocks. "I beg your pardon, Miss Strong. Here, man, quick, give me the oar--go forward--lie down in the bows and keep her keel stiff. Now then, Cynthia, don't scream, there's a good girl--there's no danger as yet. Lie down too--then you won't see anything."