When the two were ready, they looked very business-like and fit sailor-men. Crow in flannels and oilskins, with sou’-wester tied down, and steady grey eyes looking from beneath the peak of it, was a most alluring personality. Addie looked big and square, and very much in earnest. The first question to answer was, how much sail should be allowed. They had gone out that day with one reef down; the weather demanded that. Adrian now decreed two reefs down, foresail and storm jib, no mizzen. The jib had to be changed, and reefs taken down; they both worked, but it took a little time, as everyone knows who has done these nail-breaking jobs in the circumstances that usually attend them--namely, drizzly rain, salt spray, and wind in aggravating gusts. "We shall have to have the lights," said Adrian, groaning. "If only it were morning instead of seven in the evening," murmured Crow. "My good girl, what _is_ the use----" Crow laughed. "No use, Addie, only for goodness’ sake let’s buck up. We’ve got to go and search the briny main, so we may as well be cheerful. By the way, I believe Mother is going to send a messenger somewhere, too." "How do you mean _somewhere_?" "Ramsworthy." "No earthly use. What could they do? I believe there is an old crank----" "The lighthouse men have a boat, haven’t they?" "Daresay--yes, believe they have. But you’re not going to get them out ploughing the coast vaguely. They _might_ go to pick someone off a wreck they could see, or hear. Mum might just as well save her trouble. Too late to wire. No one to wire to! It’s up to _us_, old lady; we’ve got the only thing that’s any chance--a sound, fast, sailing boat. There, that’s done." It was the last reef. Then the mainsail went up, jerking and rattling, looking absurdly small, and quite useless. Also the wrong shape. "We shan’t capsize, anyway," said Crow, inwardly pleased at the small amount of canvas showing. "No, but we might be pooped." "Waves aren’t big enough, child." "You _wait_!" Adrian gave a "hollow" laugh; he noticed it himself. "I’ve often wondered what a ’hollow laugh’ was, in books," he said; "now I’ve done it myself! Next time I shan’t jeer at the miserable chaps who do it when they are hanging by one finger-nail to a crag five thousand feet above a torrent." "_They_ don’t," corrected Crow; "_they_ set their teeth till their jaws look like granite rocks. The person who gives the ’hollow laugh’ is the villain who lured them to the crag, and is peeping over just before he goes back to marry the best girl." Both laughed, not a "hollow one". "Right-o," said Adrian; "let’s sing the ’Marseillaise’, Crow, and run up the White Ensign--we’ve no earthly right, but no one will dispute with us just now. I’ll batten the fore-hatch, then ’Westward ho, with a rumbillo--and it’s----’" Adrian gave a shout that could be heard right up the valley and made Crow jump, ending with "’my mariners all--O----’" in a fantastic falsetto.