But the night, according to John of Skye’s chronology, lasts only until the tide turns or until a breeze springs up. Long before the wan glare in the east has arisen to touch the highest peaks of the Coolins, we hear the tread of the men on deck getting the yacht under way. And then there is a shuffling noise in Angus Sutherland’s cabin; and we guess that he is stealthily dressing in the dark. Is he anxious to behold the wonders of daybreak in the beautiful Loch Alsh, or is he bound to take his share in the sailing of the ship? Less perturbed spirits sink back again into sleep, and contentedly let the _White Dove_ go on her own way through the expanding blue-grey light of the dawn. Hours afterwards there is a strident shouting down the companion-way; everybody is summoned on deck to watch the yacht shoot the Narrows of Kyle Rhea. And the Laird is the first to express his surprise: are these the dreaded Narrows that have caused Captain John to start before daybreak so as to shoot them with the tide? All around is a dream of summer beauty and quiet. A more perfect picture of peace and loveliness could not be imagined than the green crags of the mainland, and the vast hills of Skye, and this placid channel between shining in the fair light of the morning. The only thing we notice is that on the glassy green of the water—this reflected, deep, almost opaque green is not unlike the colour of Niagara below the Falls—there are smooth circular lines here and there; and now and again the bows of the _White Dove_ slowly swerve away from her course as if in obedience to some unseen and mysterious pressure. There is not a breath of wind; and it needs all the pulling of the two men out there in the dingay and all the watchful steering of Captain John to keep her head straight. Then a light breeze comes along the great gully; the red-capped men are summoned on board; the dingay is left astern; the danger of being caught in an eddy and swirled ashore is over and gone. Suddenly the yacht stops as if she had run against a wall. Then, just as she recovers, there is an extraordinary hissing and roaring in the dead silence around us, and close by the yacht we find a great circle of boiling and foaming water, forced up from below and overlapping itself in ever-increasing folds. And then, on the perfectly glassy sea, another and another of those boiling and hissing circles appears, until there is a low rumbling in the summer air like the breaking of distant waves. And the yacht—the wind having again died down—is curiously compelled one way and then another, insomuch that John of Skye quickly orders the men out in the dingay again; and once more the long cable is tugging at her bows. "It seems to me," says Dr. Sutherland to our skipper, "that we are in the middle of about a thousand whirlpools."