“‘She’ll edge into Ireland, this gait,’ says Bell. I was with him on the bridge, watchin’ the _Grotkau’s_ port light. Ye canna see green so far as red, or we’d ha’ kept to leeward. We’d no passengers to consider, an’ (all eyes being on the _Grotkau_) we fair walked into a liner rampin’ home to Liverpool. Or, to be preceese, Bell no more than twisted the _Kite_ oot from under her bows, and there was a little damnin’ betwix’ the twa bridges. “Noo a passenger”—McPhee regarded me benignantly—“wad ha’ told the papers that as soon as he got to the Customs. We stuck to the _Grotkau’s_ tail that night an’ the next twa days—she slowed down to five knot by my reckonin’ and we lapped along the weary way to the Fastnet.” “But you don’t go by the Fastnet to get to any South American port, do you?” I said. “_We_ do not. We prefer to go as direct as may be. But we were followin’ the _Grotkau_, an’ she’d no walk into that gale for ony consideration. Knowin’ what I did to her discredit, I couldna blame young Bannister. It was warkin’ up to a North Atlantic winter gale, snow an’ sleet an’ a perishin’ wind. Eh, it was like the Deil walkin’ abroad o’ the surface o’ the deep, whuppin’ off the top o’ the waves before he made up his mind. They’d bore up against it so far, but the minute she was clear o’ the Skelligs she fair tucked up her skirts an’ ran for it by Dunmore Head. Wow, she rolled! “‘She’ll be makin’ Smerwick,’ says Bell. “‘She’d ha’ tried for Ventry by noo if she meant that,’ I said. “‘They’ll roll the funnel oot o’ her, this gait,’ says Bell. ‘Why canna Bannister keep her head to sea?’ “It’s the tail-shaft. Ony rollin’s better than pitchin’ wi’ superfeecial cracks in the tail-shaft. Calder knows that much,’ I said. “‘It’s ill wark retreevin’ steamers this weather,’ said Bell. His beard and whiskers were frozen to his oilskin, an’ the spray was white on the weather side of him. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather! “One by one the sea raxed away our three boats, an’ the davits were crumpled like ram’s horns. “‘Yon’s bad,’ said Bell, at the last. ‘Ye canna pass a hawser wi’oot a boat.’ Bell was a vara judeecious man—for an Aberdonian. “I’m not one that fashes himself for eventualities outside the engine-room, so I e’en slipped down betwixt waves to see how the _Kite_ fared. Man, she’s the best geared boat of her class that ever left Clyde! Kinloch, my second, knew her as well as I did. I found him dryin’ his socks on the main-steam, an’ combin’ his whiskers wi’ the comb Janet gied me last year, for the warld an’ a’ as though we were in port. I tried the feed, speered into the stoke-hole, thumbed all bearin’s, spat on the thrust for luck, gied ’em my blessin’, an’ took Kinloch’s socks before I went up to the bridge again. “Then Bell handed me the wheel, an’ went below to warm himself. When he came up my gloves were frozen to the spokes an’ the ice clicked over my eyelids. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather, as I was sayin’.