In pure enjoyment Fessenden whistled shrilly and sang snatches of song. His trip had enough of mystery about it to arouse all the boy in him. The thought of his evasion of Miss Yarnell’s importunity, too, made him laugh aloud. To be sure, his merriment was a little diminished by his recollection that she had shown no desire to accompany him at the last. Was she merely whimsical, he wondered, or had she acted with a motive?
He hauled the mainsail a trifle tauter, and watched with critical eye the flattening of the canvas. The Wisp fairly sailed herself, and needed little attention. He burst into song:
“And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle fre-e-e,
Away the good ship flies and leaves
Old England on her lee.”
He stopped. The wind pushed persistently at the flattening sail; the water purred under the bow; the shore was already hazy behind him. These things were as they ought to be, yet he had become conscious that something extraordinary had interrupted his flow of song.
His eyes, sweeping the whole horizon, came back to the sloop, surveyed her slowly from bowsprit to rudder-post, and rested finally on the closed double-doors of the little cabin that faced him across the cockpit.
At that moment a loud knocking shook the latticed doors. Then a mellow voice spoke distinctly:
“‘Behind no prison grate,’ she said,