“Well, if we don’t, we shall think of each other, shan’t we?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“And I shall be on the Main, and you’ll be here. Here on this spot.”
“Often, sir, I suppose I shall be.”
“Good-bye. There is your soldier friend, I think.”
He nodded carelessly towards the bend of the road; then made a half-bow to the shopman, and stepped into the boat.
“Shove off,” he said. “Back a stroke, port oars. Down starboard and shove her off.” As he placed the boat-rug over his knees, he heard the hoofs of horses trotting on the road. “Give way together,” he said coldly, as the boat swung round. He glanced over his shoulder at the shopman, half expecting to see the officers beside him. Then he turned to his boat’s crew. “Come. Shake her up. Shake her up,” he said. “Rally her out. Give way, now. Put your backs into it. Come on, now. Toss her up.”
The stroke quickened, the boat gathered way; she shot out into the harbour, spreading a ripple. She was a hundred yards out, keeping a fine steady stroke, when Captain Margaret turned again. He saw the figure of the shopman pointing towards him, while a man on horseback stood at his side looking towards the boat. Another horseman was galloping fast back to town, evidently to get a boat at the landing-stage.
“They aren’t very clever, these soldiers,” he thought; “but I’ve had a little luck to-day. Or was it luck? Who knows? It may not have been luck, after all. It may have been anything but that.”
He drew from the stern-locker a little flag nailed to a batten. He tied a knot in the flag.