"Well, then, that’s all settled. No, don’t thank. Dad hates _Messenger_ being on the moorings, just wasting. Hullo, here’s Pamela, just in time to join in this jubilee. I say, Pam, why didn’t you stop when I called you?" Pamela slipped into her chair, took an egg, realized the amazing news from a few words of Crow’s, looked from her mother’s happy face to Adrian’s, then attended to Mollie’s question. "How do you mean--’stop’--stop when?" "Why, just now--when I was coming down the bay drive from Crown Hill, I was nearly at the end lodge, and you came down the road from Hawksdown, went to the edge of the cliff above Penberthy’s and stared down into the cove. I called out to you, but you wouldn’t answer, you must have heard." Everybody looked at Pamela, who went on eating her egg slowly. "It was my wraith," she said, "it wasn’t me." "Jolly solid wraith," declared Mollie, laughing. "Well, but where did I go?" demanded Pamela, half laughing. "I mean, where did you think I went?" "Don’t know, my dear; I lost sight of you. It’s for you to say where you went." Pamela shook her head, and helped herself to marmalade. "Well, it wasn’t me," she repeated. "’_I_’, Pamela dear, ’_I_’, please," put in Miss Chance urgently. And everybody laughed. *CHAPTER III* *In which Hughie is Ill-used* Some days after that joyous breakfast--Mollie being deeply engaged in the arduous duty of packing--the Romilly crew took out the white yawl in force. Jim Crow was admittedly skipper. She was the eldest, and had a "sailing" bent undoubtedly. Captain Romilly, in training his family to understand the true inwardness of boats, had discovered the natural gift in his elder daughter. Adrian loved it--and loved the sea, but he was going to be a soldier in due course; Crow and Hughie were following faithfully in the Romilly record. On this warm still evening--for the day was drawing to a close--_Messenger_ floated lazily on a heaving oily sea. The sky was full of brassy clouds that seemed to have a copper lining; these, drifting, with scarcely perceptible movement, from the north and east, formed rather a serious barrier to getting home, because, given a good strong tide running out also, what is the cleverest yacht to do? Earlier in the day, with mainsail set as well as mizzen, with big jib ballooning out in fine style, in fact, looking exactly what a well-kept yawl should look, _Messenger_ had gone away down to the southwest straight before the wind and with the tide. The skipper had acted on a sound principle in this; but she was not very sure of her tides, and, having decided that the tide should be in their favour for the homeward run, was now disturbed and puzzled to find it had not turned yet--and the hour was six o’clock or after.