This splendid sense of life, and motion, and brisk excitement! We flew through the narrows like a bolt from a bow; we had scarcely time to regard the whirling eddies of the current. All hands were on the alert too, for the wind came in gusts from the Skye hills, and this tortuous strait is not a pleasant place to be taken unawares in. But the watching and work were altogether delightful, after our long imprisonment. Even the grave John of Skye was whistling "Fhir a bhata" to himself—somewhat out of tune. The wild and stormy sunset was shining all along the shores of Loch Alsh as we got out of the narrows and came in sight of Kyle Akin. And here were a number of vessels all storm-stayed, one of them, in the distance, with her sail set. We discovered afterwards that this schooner had dragged her anchors and run ashore at Balmacara; she was more fortunate than many others that suffered in this memorable gale, and was at the moment we passed returning to her former anchorage. The sunlight and the delight of moving had certainly got into the heads of these people. Nothing would do for them but that John of Skye should go on sailing all night. Kyle Akin? they would not hear of Kyle Akin. And it was of no avail that Captain John told them what he had heard ashore—that the _Glencoe_ had to put back with her bulwarks smashed; that here, there, and everywhere vessels were on the rocks; that Stornoway harbour was full of foreign craft, not one of which would put her nose out. They pointed to the sea, and the scene around them. It was a lovely sunset. Would not the moon be up by eleven? "Well, mem," said John of Skye, with a humorous smile, "I think if we go on the night, there not mich chance of our rinning against anything." And indeed he was not to be outbraved by a couple of women. When we got to Kyle Akin, the dusk beginning to creep over land and sea, he showed no signs of running in there for shelter. We pushed through the narrow straits, and came in view of the darkening plain of the Atlantic, opening away up there to the north, and as far as we could see there was not a single vessel but ourselves on all this world of water. The gloom deepened; in under the mountains of Skye there was a darkness as of midnight. But one could still make out ahead of us the line of the Scalpa shore, marked by the white breaking of the waves. Even when that grew invisible we had Rona light to steer by.