'Yes, Miss Cheyne,' replied Tom, who was greatly enchanted to have the girl all to himself, and to feel her little hand clinging to his arm. 'I should think that Harwich is well-nigh abeam of us now.' 'And how far off may it be?' 'Some sixty miles or so--too far,' he added, laughing, 'for us to hear the clang of the Bell Buoy.' 'Too far, indeed!' 'Are you anxious to return homeward?' 'Oh, yes, I hope, I do hope we shall do so soon,' exclaimed Alison, with a little sob in her throat. Tom Llanyard heard the sound, and, kindly patting the hand that lay on his arm, he said, laughingly, 'There is nothing in this world like hope, to a sailor especially. What does the old song say?' And Tom sung in a low, and not unmusical voice, 'Poor Jack saw his bark on the ocean of life Now sink, now the billows o'ertop, When despair would present him a bullet or knife, He lays hold on the anchor of Hope. 'His chest and his trifles may sink in the wave, Fore and aft a loved messmate may drop, He may shed a salt tear for the loss of the brave, But he leans on the anchor of Hope. '"Heart of oak," sobs he, bluntly, "your fate I deplore, Ne'er a smarter could splice me a rope, Still, my lad, we must keep a good look-out afore, And depend on the anchor of Hope." Ere Alison could say a word of compliment to Tom on his singing, one of the watch forward cried out, 'Light ahead!' 'Where away?' asked Tom. 'Right ahead, sir.' 'I can't see it.' 'Can't help that, sir--it was there a moment ago, a point or so on the lee bow.' Another man of the watch asserted the same thing. Tom Llanyard got his night-glass, and swept the obscurity ahead with it, but in vain. Intensely dark was the night--intensely black the sea through which the yacht was running. The gurgle and wash of the billows could be heard at the bows and under the counter, but nothing was seen of them. There was no phosphorescent gleam--no pale streak of foam to catch the eye or define the presence of the deep, and the imaginative mind of Alison felt in its fullest sense all the mystery of the hidden miles of water that were around her; while the keen and ceaseless watch kept by those on deck impressed her with a curiously mingled sense of security and danger--security in the skill and courage of the crew; danger in the knowledge that there were shoals and sands about her, and a sea alive with vessels. Suddenly out of the darkness there came two wavering flames, then a row of red round lights, all in a line, as a steamer swept past, looming huge and dark, with a cloud of red sparks streaming to leeward from her unseen funnel, and the commotion her screw propeller and the pulsing her engines made in the water passed away with her, and there seemed to be a deeper darkness all around the _Firefly_ as she faded into the obscurity astern. 'That was the light you saw?' said Tom to the look-out man forward.