Then they separated, the fishermen returning to their boats. Bill Kisseck leaped aboard the lugger that lay at the mouth of the harbor. His six men followed him. "See all clear," he shouted to Danny, who sailed with him as boy. Danny stood on the quay with the duty of clearing ropes from blocks, and then following in the dingey that was moored to the steps. Among the women who had come down to the harbor to see the departure of the fleet were two who bore no very close resemblance to the great body of the townswomen. One was an elderly woman, with a thin sad face. The other was a young women, of perhaps two or three and twenty, tall and muscular, with a pale cast of countenance, large brown eyes, and rich auburn hair. The face, though strong and beautiful, was not radiant with happiness, and yet it recalled very vividly a glint of human sunshine that we have known before. In another moment little Ruby, red with running, pranced up to their side, crying, "Mona, come and see Danny Fayle's boat. Here, look, there; that one with the color on the deck." The admiral's boat was to carry a flag. The two women were pulled along by the little sprite and stopped just where Danny himself was untying a knot in a rope. Danny recognized them, lifted his hat, blushed, looked confused, and seemed for the moment to forget the cable. "Tail on there!" shouted Bill Kisseck from the lugger. "Show a leg there, if you don't want the rat's tail. D'ye hear?" Danny was fumbling with his cap. That poor lagging lower lip was giving a yearning look to the lad's simple face. He muttered some commonplace to Mona, and then dropped his head. At that instant his eyes fell on the lower part of her dress. The blue serge of her gown was bleached near her feet. Danny, who could think of nothing else to say, mumbled something about the salt water having taken the color out of Mona's dress. The girl looked down, and then said quietly: "Yes, I was caught by the tide last night--I mean to say, I was--" She was clearly trying to recall her words, but poor Danny had hardly heard them. "You cursed booby!" cried Bill Kisseck, leaping ashore, "prating with a pack of women when I'm a-waiting for you. I'll make you walk handsome over the bricks, my man." With that he struck Danny a terrible blow and felled him. The lad got up abashed, and without a word turned to his work. Kisseck, still in a tempest of wrath, was leaping back to the lugger, when the young woman stepped up to him, looked fearlessly in his face, seemed about to speak, checked herself, and turned away. Kisseck stood measuring her from head to foot with his eyes, broke into a little bitter laugh, and said: "I'm right up and down like a yard of pumpwater; that's what I am." He jumped aboard again. Danny ran the rope from the blocks, the admiral's boat cleared away, and the flag shot up to the mast-head. The other boats followed one after one to the number of nearly one hundred. The bay was full of them.