He was not surprised, then, that the boat did not arrive till the long, weary night had passed away, and the bright sun shone once more upon the dancing waters, but even then noon was fast approaching before there was the measured dip of oars, and the boat came round a wooded point. He looked earnestly for Mace, but, not seeing her, he sighed. "My eyes fail me a good deal now," he said; and, shading them with his hand, he stood watching till, as the boat neared the ship, he could see that she had four men lying in the stern sheets, and he concluded that there had been an encounter. "A bad augur," he said, sadly; "bloodshed on the eve of a wedding. Poor boy though, there seems no chance of a wedding, for he has not won his love." His hands trembled as he stood at the gangway, while the boat was run up to the side and Gil painfully climbed on board. "Failed, my son?" cried Father Brisdone and here he stopped short as he saw the terrible look of anguish in the young man's eyes. "Help my poor lads, father," he said sadly. "They have been lying hurt these many hours." One by one four injured men were hoisted on board, and laid beneath the shelter of a sail, while Gil and the father attended to their injuries with rough but sensible surgery. There was a severe sword-wound and plenty of terrible burns, but the worst sufferer was poor Wat Kilby, whose face was blackened by the explosion, hair and beard burned off, and his thigh-bone broken. He was in a high fever and wandering when slung on board, turning angrily upon those who had helped him. "Don't I tell you the poor lass is burning?" he cried. "This is your doing, skipper," he moaned. "You were always against it, and now you leave the poor lass to burn, and keep me here. Father, this is the boy I watched over and brought up, and taught. This be the way he treats me now I am in trouble." It was with great difficulty that they could keep the poor old fellow sufficiently quiet to enable them to perform the necessary bandaging, but at last he sank into the heavy sleep of exhaustion; and Gil, having satisfied himself that his injured men were cared for, saw to his own burns, gave orders for the ship to be floated up to her old berth on the next tide, and then returned to the Pool. For the next seven days he was almost constantly at Roehurst, in company with the stricken father, whom affliction seemed to have turned back to him as his only friend; and together they hung about the ruins, which still smouldered slightly, and crumbled more and more into a shapeless heap, overhung by a few masses of tottering wall. Gil would have tried to persuade the old man to leave the spot, but that it had so terrible a fascination for him as well, and together they would sit hour after hour gazing at the ruins, and rebuilding the place mentally and occupying it as of old.