And the villagers sympathized all the more, for this conclusion, with Mrs. Warren, as she took the boat for home that morning, bravely keeping back her tears, and receiving courageously their kindly assurances, though her heart was breaking. The _Nancy Jane_ was a heavy fishing-boat, of the centreboard type, big and beamy and shallow of build, able to “carry sail” in the worst of weather, but not so marvellously fast as one might have been led to believe by the recommendation of her owner. However, it was quite true that she could overhaul the _Spray_—only give her time enough, and provided no accident should happen. “She’s got a bit of water in her,” said Captain Sam. “So make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable, while I pump her out. She’ll sail faster and point up better with the water out of her, and we’ll all be more comfortable.” And the colonel and the squire made themselves anything but comfortable, fretting and fuming at the delay. The captain took it leisurely, however, yanked the pump for ten minutes or more, to the accompaniment of short puffs of his pipe, and then pronounced her dry as “Dry Ledge at low tide.” The colonel and the squire were neither of them sailors; so they could only wait on Captain Sam’s pleasure. He finally made sail on the _Nancy Jane_, got up anchor, brought her “full and by,” and they began the long zigzag chase down the bay in the teeth of the wind. The breeze freshened as they drew out of the shelter of the island shore, and down between the nearer islands Captain Sam could see the line of breeze show black upon the water. “Looks like a right smart blow by afternoon,” he said. Colonel Witham looked up apprehensively. “It doesn’t get dangerous, does it?” he asked. Captain Sam laughed dryly. “Guess you’re not much on sailing, colonel, are you?” he asked, by way of reply. “Bless you! We don’t get a dangerous blow in the bay once in a summer. No, you need not worry about that. There’s no danger; but I wouldn’t wonder if we had a bit of a chop-sea when the wind freshens.” The colonel looked more at ease. “No,” he said, “I’m no sailor. I manage to make the voyage down the river to the island, but that is as much seagoing as I have ever wanted, and this will be my first real ocean experience.” “Not what you’d hardly call an ocean experience, either,” said Captain Sam, grinning from ear to ear. “No,” and he said the words over to himself as though they afforded him no end of amusement, “a slat to windward from the point to Gull Island ain’t just what one would call an ocean experience, though it does shake a body up now and then in a blow.” Dinner-hour came, and they had the _Spray_ well in sight, some miles ahead and pitching hard. “We’ll eat a snack,” said Captain Sam, who was never so happy and hearty as when he had his hand on the wheel of the _Nancy Jane_. “Colonel, have one of Mrs. Curtis’s fresh doughnuts, just fried this morning, make you feel like a schoolboy.”