Then without further speech between them, the four men swam past him and disappeared, faint wreathings and smears of phosphorescence trailing after them out of the gloom into which they had vanished. Wat drew a long breath as they were lost to sight. He knew that he had been assisting at one of the last scenes in Barra's complete and minute exploration of the isle--every cave and passage, every entrance to and outgate from it. It was just such an undertaking as he might have expected from a man so resolute as Barra, with a retinue as desperate as Haxo the Bull, his Calf, and his Killer. Now, indeed, he was aware that there was no time to be lost in getting away from this isle of Fiara, which had brought him so many happy hours. Adam knew that the spoiler had looked upon his demi-Paradise, and that Eve herself was in danger. Wat waited a while before he dared to bring out the boat and row across the Sound to the place where Scarlett and Kate were waiting for him. He found Scarlett philosophically seated with his back against a rock, but Kate moved uneasily about upon the shore, clasping her hands in great anxiety. "O Wat," she said, "my dear, my dear, I thought some ill chance had befallen you. Wellnigh had I come to seek you, but for your command to bide with Scarlett." "And it is indeed well, Kate," he answered, smiling a little, "that you were thus mindful of my words." Then Wat told them all that he had seen and heard, till even Scarlett was impressed by the imminence of their needs. So without delaying a moment the three took such burdens as they could carry, and set out to cross the ridge of Fiara to the place where Wise Jan Pettigrew waited beside their first boat with everything ready to push off. But before they left the boat which Wat had brought out of the water-cavern, Wat bade Scarlett help him to load her with stones from the beach. With a mallet he knocked out the plug under the stern seat, and, as before, sunk her in mid-channel. Then he swam ashore, and followed Kate and Scarlett over to the northern side of the island. The moon was just dipping below the horizon when, with Kate in the stern and Wise Jan handling the boat to a marvel, they left the beautiful island behind them. Kate drew in a long breath, and her hand rested a moment on Wat's in the darkness. It was the isle of her first assurance and her dawning happiness. No place could ever be quite the same to her. There it lay, Fiara, the Isle of Bliss, looming gray against the dark, solemn, bird-haunted front of Lianacraig. Should she ever see it more? There was the dear rowan-tree at the angle of the wall where they had so often sat, and there was the sweet sickle-sweep of white sand by which they had so often walked. A little farther over the dusk and sleeping Sound was Suliscanna, on which stood Bess Landsborough's house, and that smoky inner room where her love had first taken her to his heart, coming to her like a vision out of the night.