[Illustration: It's time these lubbers walked the plank.]
"Ay, ay, sir!" said Elsie cheerfully; and then she added, in a doubtful voice, "But won't the poor men get drowned?"
"Not in four feet of water," said Captain Hildebrand; and he set briskly about the preparations for the fell deed. With Elsie's help he brought a plank to the gangway; and then, either taking him by an arm, they dragged the grunting Adolphe slowly down the deck, and arranged him on the plank. With a capstan bar, and many a hearty "Yo, heave ho!" they levered the plank out over the side till Adolphe's weight tilted it up, and he soused into the water.
For a moment he disappeared, then he rose spluttering and choking, sank again, found his footing, and stood up, roaring like a flabbergasted bull. Captain Hildebrand lay quietly down on the deck, and writhed and kicked in spasms of racking mirth; but his trusty lieutenant, after laughing a while, looked grave, and said, "The poor man will take cold."
"I have no sympathy with drunkards," said Captain Hildebrand with cold severity; but he rose, and, going forward, by kicking Alphonse hard and freely in the ribs, roused him from his dream of the lass who loved a sailor, and said, "Adolphe has fallen overboard."
It took some time for the information to penetrate Alphonse's skull. When it did, he was all vivid alertness, staggered swiftly aft to the gangway, and in rather less than five seconds, with no conspicuous agility, had precipitated himself into Adolphe's arms. They rose, clinging to one another, and both roared like bulls, while the shrieking Tinker danced lightly round the deck.
Presently he recovered enough to throw them a rope, and they climbed on board: no difficult feat, seeing that the deck was not two feet above their heads. Before they thought of the yacht they went to the forecastle and changed their wet clothes, while the dusk deepened. Tinker went to the galley, and made tea. He had brought it to the cabin, and he and Elsie were making a well-earned and hearty meal, and discoursing with gusto of their blood-dyed career during the afternoon, when Alphonse, very sad and glum, came and told them that the yacht was aground, and Adolphe was getting up full steam to get her off. Tinker with great readiness said he would come up and help.
In half an hour he heard the rattle of the propeller, and, coming on deck, said he would go to the bows while Alphonse took the wheel, and Adolphe worked the engines.
He went right forward, and peered into the darkness. Adolphe set the engines going full speed, reversed, and Tinker cried, "She's moving!"
He saw the anchor chain slowly tauten, then the Petrel moved no more. The propeller thrashed away, but to no purpose, and to his great joy he was sure that the anchor held her. However, he cheered them on to persevere, and for nearly half an hour the propeller thrashed away. Then they gave it up, sat down gloomily on the hatch of the engine room, and lighted their pipes. Tinker and Elsie went back to the cabin, rolled themselves in rugs, and were soon enjoying the innocent sleep of childhood.
It was twelve o'clock when Tinker awoke, and at once he went on deck and found that Alphonse, by way of keeping watch, had gone comfortably asleep in the bows, while Adolphe snored from the forecastle. He kicked Alphonse awake, and said, "Don't you think you could get her off if you hauled up the anchor?"
For a minute or two Alphonse turned the idea hazily over in his apology for a mind; then, with a hasty exclamation, he ran to the side, and saw dimly the taut anchor chain. He blundered below, lugged Adolphe out of his berth and on deck, and for five excited minutes they explained to one another that the anchor was embedded in the sandbank, and that it held the Petrel on it. Then soberly and slowly they got to work on the capstan, and hauled up the anchor. A dozen turns of the propeller drew the Petrel off the bank and into deep water. In three minutes they had her about and steamed off towards the marooned, while Tinker in the galley was heating water for coffee and making soup.
In the meanwhile Dorothy and Sir Tancred, ignorant of their plight, had spent a delightful afternoon exploring with a never-tiring interest one another's souls. For a long time she chided him gently for his aimless manner of living; and he defended himself with a half-mocking sadness. At about sunset they rose reluctantly, sighed with one accord that the pleasant hours were over, looked at one another with sudden questioning eyes at the sound of the sighs, and looked quickly away. They walked slowly, on feet reluctant to leave pleasant places, through the pines, silent, save that twice Sir Tancred sent his voice ringing among the trees in a call to Tinker. They came to the landing-place, to find an empty sea, and looked at one another blankly.
"The children must have persuaded the men to take them for a cruise," said Sir Tancred.
"But they're late coming back," said Dorothy.
For a while their eyes explored the corners and recesses of the Gulf within sight, but found no Petrel. Then Sir Tancred said, "Well, we must wait"; and spread a rug for her at the foot of a tree. He paced up and down before her, keeping an eye over the water and talking to her.
The dusk deepened and deepened, and at last it was quite dark.
"We're in a fix," said Sir Tancred uneasily. "Of course, if we stay here they will come for us sooner or later, but goodness knows when. If we set out to walk to civilisation we shall doubtless in time strike it somewhere, but goodness knows where."
"If we went along this strip and turned eastward at the end of it shouldn't we come to the railway?" said Dorothy.
"I don't know that we should. We should get into the Landes, and they're by way of being trackless. Anyhow it would mean walking for hours; and it is less exhausting for you to sit here. The Petrel must turn up sooner or later."
Remembering her talk with Tinker in the morning, Dorothy believed that it would be later—much later; but as she could hardly unfold her reasons for the belief, she said nothing.
For a long time they were silent. Listening to the faint thunder of the Bay behind them, the lapping of the water at their feet, and the stirring of the pines, she filled slowly with a sense of their aloofness from the world, and a perfect content in being out of it alone with him. For his part, Sir Tancred was ill at ease; he foresaw that unless the Petrel came soon a lot of annoying gossip might spring from their accident, and he was distressed on her account. On the other hand, he, too, found himself enjoying being alone with her out of the world.
At last she said softly, "I feel as though we were on a desolate, far-away island."
"I wish to goodness we were!" he cried, with a fervour which thrilled her.
"You'd find it very dull," she said, with a faint, uncertain laugh.
"Not with you," he said quietly.
She was silent; and he took another turn up and down before he said, half to himself, "It would simplify things so, we should be equal."
"Equal?"
"Oh, not from the personal point of view!" he said quickly. "You'd always be worth a hundred of me. But on a desolate island money wouldn't count."
"Oh, money!" she said with a faint disdain. "What has money to do with anything?"
He sighed, and continued his pacing.
"Money is always an obstacle," he said presently. "Either there is too little of it, and that's an obstacle; or there is too much of it, and that's an obstacle."
"I don't think papa would agree with you about too much money," said Dorothy.
"I'm wondering what he will say if we don't turn up before morning," said Sir Tancred gloomily.
"I suppose he'll say that it was an unfortunate accident."
"Yes; but then, I ought to have protected you against unfortunate accidents. I'm afraid there'll be a lot of gossip."
"Well, it wasn't your fault," said Dorothy carelessly.
Sir Tancred grew more and more unhappy. His watch told him that it was nearly ten o'clock, and there was no sign of the Petrel. Moreover, the sense of their aloofness from the world had taken a firmer hold on him, and it drew him and Dorothy nearer and nearer together. The feeling that the world, of which her money had grown the symbol, would again come between them, grew more and more intolerable.
At last it grew too strong for him, and he stopped before her and said, in a voice he could not keep firm, "About that wasted life of mine, Dorothy. Do you think you could do anything with it?"
Dorothy gasped. "I might—I might try," she said in a whisper.
He stooped down, picked her up, and kissed her. Then, with a profound sigh of relief and content, he sat down beside her, drew her to him, and leaned back against the tree; she was crying softly.
They were far away from the world, and for them time stood still. They did not see the approaching lights of the Petrel, or hear the throb of her screw; only the roaring hail of Alphonse awoke them from their dream.
When they came on board, the observant Tinker saw the flush which came and went in Dorothy's cheeks, and the new light in his father's eyes; he saw her genuine surprise at finding herself so hungry. He observed that his father was quite careless about the cause of the Petrel's long absence, and his angel face was wreathed with the contented smile of the truly meritorious.
After supper his father went on deck to watch the steering of the yacht; Elsie fell asleep; and Dorothy sat, lost in a dream.
"Is it all right?" said Tinker softly.
"I don't know what you mean. You're a horrid scheming little boy," said Dorothy with shameless ingratitude.
"Yes; but is it all right?" said Tinker.
"I shan't let you scheme like that when—when I'm your mother," said Dorothy with virtuous severity, and she blushed.
"So it is all right," said Tinker, and he chuckled.