“But it would be undignified in an officer,” he felt; and he sat still, feeling the boat live almost in the water as she throbbed from end to end with the powerful strokes, and glide up the waves, hang for a moment, and slide down.
“Tidy swell on, Mr Raystoke,” said Gurr.
“Oh, it’s glorious!” replied the lad in a low voice.
“Glorious?”
“Yes. You don’t know what it means to have been shut up in a place like a cellar, always black, and longing to see the blue sky and sunshine.”
“Well, there aren’t none now, my lad.”
“No, Gurr, there is no blue sky and sunshine, but—but—this is delightful;” and he said to himself, with his breast swelling, “I feel stupid, and as if I could cry like a child.”
They were nearing the cutter fast, her lights growing plainer, and the lad leaned forward with feelings that were almost ecstatic as he tried to scan her lines, and thought of leaping on her deck, and feeling the easy, yielding motion as she rose and fell to her cable where she lay at anchor. He even thought of how glorious it would be for there to come a storm, with the spray beating on his cheeks and then, as he involuntarily raised his hand to his face, a thought occurred to him which made him start.
“Oh!” he mentally ejaculated, as he thought of his long sojourn in the cave, and a feeling of satisfaction came over him that it was dark; “what a horribly dirty wretch I must look!”
A hail came from the cutter at last, and was answered from the boat, Archy’s heart beating fast as he dimly saw the figures on board, and thought of the joy of being once more in his own cabin.