All things then being in train for refreshment and start, the skipper hastened upstairs again, and the first thing she saw was that the dinghy had slipped her tow and gone off. She called to Adrian, who appearing with swiftness took a comprehensive look at the shifting grey waste around. "She can’t be far off," declared Crow hopefully. Her brother pointed to a dark blot that was heaved up by a wave, only to disappear behind another foam-tipped hill. "Little beast," he said shortly. "Never mind," Christobel urged cheerfully--she detected a fallen expression on his face, "never mind, Addie, it’s nobody’s fault. We’ll soon pick her up." As they hauled the jib over and let out the mainsheet, she added: "_What_ a blessing it didn’t happen when the rain was pouring, and she was full of water! She’d have sunk to a certainty." Adrian allowed these cheering remarks to pass unnoticed. "I thought I made her fast," he said. Such mishaps rankle. In spite of all their efforts that dinghy evaded capture for twenty minutes at least, if not more. If anybody thinks this improbable let them try to capture a small light boat in such conditions. Many tacks seemed to succeed only in passing just out of reach; running down on the wind ended in a miss, because the pace was too swift for the careful use of the necessary boat-hook. Adrian stood ready in the bows of the yawl, holding to the forestay, only to fail half a dozen times, once narrowly escaping a dive. After that he pursued operations from the counter, making Crow very nervous. "Hold on, child, for mercy’s sake," she urged, "do consider wretched me if you go overboard!" Adrian was just in the heat of proving that it would be actually to her advantage if he fell overboard--couldn’t he reach the dinghy more easily--when Christobel, partly by sheer luck, brought the yawl up into the wind on the very spot, so cleverly that she seemed to stop side by side with the runaway. A swoop of the boat-hook, a moment’s tension, and Adrian had grasped the trailing tow-rope. Christobel blew a very loud sigh of relief, she had been very intent on the capture. Immediately on that came an exclamation of surprise, and Adrian rose from his knees to see what new excitement was coming their way. *CHAPTER VI* *"I wouldn’t have believed it of Pam!"* The heavy atmosphere of spray, rain, and driven cloud that had enveloped the yacht up till now was passing bodily over to seaward. From beneath the curtain of it towards the north appeared--in brilliant sunshine--a wonderful line of coast showing up in rain-swept clearness. Above it the sky was blue; the purple and emerald hills glowed in the setting. "Oh, Addie, what a dream of beauty! We shall be in it directly--just look how all the murky stuff is drifting away over the sea! I say, though, aren’t we a long way out--miles and miles!"