Meanwhile, the Daisy sped buoyantly towards the southwest. Although she was broad in beam and staunch from thwart to keel it was no light undertaking to run fourteen miles out and home in such a craft.
But old Ben Pollard knew what he was about. Not until the granite pillar of the distant Gulf Rock opened up beyond Carn du was it necessary to turn the boat's head seawards. Even then, by steering close to the Runnelstone, they need not, during two-thirds of the time, be more than a mile or so distant from one of the many creeks in which they could secure shelter in case of a sudden change in the weather.
Thenceforward there was nothing for it but a straight run of six miles to the rock, behind which lay the Scilly Isles, forty miles away, and well below the boat's horizon.
So, when the moment came for the final decision to be made, Pollard cast an anxious eye at a great bank of cloud mounting high in the north.
There was an ominous drop in the temperature, too. The rain he anticipated might turn to snow, and snow is own brother to fog at sea, though both are generally absent from the Cornish littoral in winter.
"Ben," cried Enid, breaking off a vivid if merciless description of a new disciple who had joined the artistic coterie at Newlyn, "what are you looking at?"
He scratched his head and gazed fixedly at the white battalions sweeping in aërial conquest over the land.
"She do look like snaw," he admitted.
"Well, what does that matter?"
Without waiting for orders Constance had eased the helm a trifle. The Daisy was now fairly headed for the rock. With this breeze she would be there in less than an hour.