They turned and walked rapidly in the direction of the fishing-shack, the only shelter the island afforded; while the captain, standing out in relief upon the rock, like some disappointed Napoleon, was the last solitary object that the boys saw as, looking astern from the _Spray_, the little island faded from their view into the twilight. CHAPTER XX. AMONG THE ISLANDS The yacht _Spray_, with six jubilant boys aboard, sailed slowly away from Heron and Spring Islands, shaping its course for a group of outer islands of some considerable size, about two miles away. It was nearly seven o’clock, but the southerly breeze had not wholly died with the going down of the sun, and the tide, which had just begun to ebb, was favourable. “I think we can get across to-night,” said George Warren. “This wind is going to hold for some hours yet and maybe all night; and we know our way into Cold Harbour at any hour of the twenty-four. I don’t think Captain Sam will start to run out of the Little Reach at all to-night, for when the tide drops there are some bad ledges all along that thoroughfare, and, besides, he won’t want to run the risk of drifting out here in the bay, in case the wind should drop. We shall have twelve hours start of him, anyway, and once among the islands we can keep out of sight for days.” “I’d have given something to see the colonel and the squire when they found we had slipped away from them at the very moment they thought they had us,” said young Joe. “Didn’t they look funny, standing up there on the rock, watching us sail away?” “Captain Sam has my sympathy,” said Henry Burns, dryly, and the very thought of the disappointed trio arguing it out together sent the boys into fits of laughter. They fairly rolled over on the seats and hugged one another. “It’s the richest joke of the season,” said young Joe. And so, for the time being, in their elation, the consciousness that they were runaways, fleeing from possible arrest, was forgotten. The stars came out, and a lighthouse far and near gave them their course. The water gleamed with phosphorescence, and the yacht _Spray_ left a wake of gleaming silver and gold and flashing jewels. By and by the moon came up out of the sea and threw a radiant path across the waters, and the islands ahead stood out in huge black shadow. It was glorious sailing, with the soft summer night air blowing in their faces; and they sang as they sailed, and yo-hoed all the sea choruses they knew, and felt so free and irresponsible that the yacht _Spray_, as though it absorbed some of their spirit, rolled along in a merry, swinging fashion, rocking gently from billow to billow, dipping and tossing in time to the music.