As we walked back to Alastair's, we saw Belle standing on a ridge of high ground, with the morning light behind her—dark against the light, and her eyes straining to the sea; and as we came closer I spoke, thinking to take her away from her sorrow, but her dark eyes remained fixed on the schooner, as though she had never heard me. There was a little mist hanging over the sea.
We sat down to a meal of salted herrings in Alastair's kitchen, the weans round us still sleepy and barefooted, and with tousled red locks, which they flung from their eyes with a gesture very like a spirited Hielan' pony tossing its mane; and when I looked from the door again—which I was glad enough to do, for the reek was a little nippy to my eyes—as I looked from the door I saw Belle returning, and with her no other than Robin McKelvie of the Quay Inn. There was no sign of the Seagull, for a fog had come down on the firth, and even the melancholy pleasure of seeing Dan's ship again was taken from me.
McKelvie stood at the door, and his face was red with running, and streaked with white in places with fatigue.
"My father thought ye would make for this place. Rob Beag's no' dead," he said; "the devil has more for him to do yet."
[1] Second sight.
CHAPTER XIV.
WE RETURN.
We made the great to-do in Alastair's kitchen between the exceeding gladness of the news and the foolishness of our flight, and Alastair himself was rowing in the fog after the Gull—only Belle said no word, but went quietly behind a rick of peats close to the house, and I, following her in my slow useless way, came on her suddenly, her arms outstretched to the empty sea, and such a look of anguish on her face that I was silent. No words at all came from her, but her bosom rose and fell as she battled with her sorrow.
"The man's not deid," said I, for I felt that was the great news, but little did I know the woman.
"Dead," she cries—"dead," and laughed. "Would that dog's death have brought a tear to my eyes. Hamish, Hamish, I have lost my man."