"It is scarcely time to hear anything yet," said Fred. "We must not be discouraged until we have heard from the boats that have gone farther away, and until our own plan fails to put us on her track."
"I don't believe it will fail," answered Yaspard, with a show of resolution far greater than his inward hope warranted.
"We will hope, boy; and we will not forget that the Father's watchful care has been about her in her loneliness and peril, poor little lassie!"
They lapsed into silence after that, and drearily watched the water as it carried them along, until they began to near a group of skerries which lay on the direct way to Havnholme. The steady current flowing past the point of Yelholme had borne them in safety beyond all dangerous rocks until nearing that ugly group, and when they noted the direction in which they were then drifting their hearts sank.
Fred sat white and stern, looking at the black rocks round which the ocean seethed white, and Yaspard wondered what he meant to do. He did not have much time to wonder. Fred took the seat in the stern, and said in a low voice, "She shall go as far as we dare let her; stand by to lift the sail when I bid you."
On went the boat, rolling more perilously as she came among the more disturbed waters; then it seemed that she lay checked between two huge waves for a moment; and while she so seemed to pause, the young fellows anxiously gazed at the group of skerries, fearing everything from their dark and frowning appearance.
Presently—could it be? Yes, the boat was not proceeding as she had done. She was going in another direction; she had met a cross tide, and was being carried by it past the skerries, past the towering cliffs of Havnholme, and into the quiet smiling little bay which gave that island its blessed name.