"That will be Christmass Owen, sir."
"Oh!" exclaimed Cleve. "And the other's the old gentleman from Malory?"
"Well, I think 'twill be him, sure."
In another minute the punt of the yacht was alongside the boat, with a message from Cleve, inviting the old gentleman on board, and offering to put him ashore wherever he liked best.
Shortly and grimly the courtesy was refused. The wrath of the old man, however, seemed to have subsided, and he gathered himself within the folds of his silence again. All had passed in a darkness like that of Styx. A dense screen of cloud had entirely hid the moon; and though so near, Cleve could not see the old man of Malory, about whom he was curious, with a strange and even tender sort of curiosity, which, certainly, no particular graciousness on his part had invited. In a few minutes more the boat, with the aid of another spar, was on her course again, and the Wave more than a mile away on hers.
CHAPTER IX.
THE REVEREND ISAAC DIXIE.
At five o'clock next day, Cleve Verney was again in Cardyllian.