They had reached the great chamber in the cliff which lay open to the north, and in which Jack Scarlett already had his cooking-fire of charcoal alight for the evening meal. A hundred yards from the entrance there met them a sweet and appetizing smell of fresh sea-fish broiling in the ashes. For Wise Jan lay most of his spare time fishing out on a jutting rock, where the swirl of the Suck sent a back-spang of current careering anglewise along the northern edge of the Fiara. "Jack," said Wat, as they came in, "I think that we should get away from the island as soon as we can." "And has it taken you all this time to come to that conclusion?" cried old Jack, without looking up, plowtering discontentedly in the red embers with a burned stick. "The new moon will now give us nearly three hours' light--enough for our purpose," said Wat, "and Wise Jan here can help us to put our old boat in readiness." "Why not the new and brave one you hid in the water-passage? I suppose it is there in safety still?" said Scarlett. "Aye," replied Wat, "but unless you want to be cast away the second time in the tumble of the Suck, you will most carefully leave that boat alone; for the current races by at either end, and except for those who have spent their lives in piloting their way through the intricate passages of the reefs and know their every glide and swirl, it is impossible to reach the open sea from the Sound of Suliscanna." "How then?" grumbled Scarlett, for these things of the sea were not in his province, and he resented the reference of any question to him. "Let those that stomach cold salt-water agree about the road over it. My parish begins when there is solid earth beneath my feet." Wat answered him clearly, scoring the points on his fingers as he made them. "First we have the old boat, which on my first coming hither I found floating in the northern bay and brought ashore. Well, we must get Jan to rig her with the mast out of the larger boat in the water-cave, and equip her with the oars out of that also. Then, since the Suck sweeps past us on the east, and there is a strong tide-race to the west, we must steer our way directly out from the northern shore of Fiara, which is indeed the only direction in which the sea is anyway clear. We shall keep steadily on till we find the waters to the east calm and practicable, for the fretting of the tide on the shoreward skerries cannot last long out on the open sea." Scarlett nodded his head. It was all right, he thought. He was ready to adventure in any direction which did not involve another wrestle with the unfriendly and unwholesome Suck of Suliscanna. "This very night," quoth Wat, to close the discussion, "will I swim over and bring back the needful things for our departure in the boat itself. It is a pity, indeed, that we cannot take her with us."