The road to the little jetty was visible the whole way from the Castle to the water. That cluster of cottages was the only one within three miles of the Castle.
For awhile Cheyne stood leaning forward against the wind contemplating the scene. He looked out under the low clouds streaming up towards him, and could see no craft of any kind. He looked into the bay, and saw a few fishing-boats rolling slowly in the comparatively smooth water between him and the reef. He looked at the reef itself, and the cataracts of white foam and waving haloes of dun spray. He heard the thunder of the ocean billows on the reef, and swash of lesser waves upon the shore.
"What a storm!" he thought. "And that yacht is out there--out there where the long waves, each with the weight of thousands of tons, press onward ceaselessly to the shore. It is wonderful to think man can build anything which can withstand the onslaught of such mighty waves, the fury of such relentless wind! It is almost incredible that any structure of wood could live afloat under conditions such as these!"
He pressed his hand firmly over his eyes, drew his coat tightly round him, and, leaning still more forward into the wind, pushed resolutely down the road leading to the jetty.
CHAPTER XIII.
[A NOR'-EASTER AT SEA.]
When this north-east wind began to blow, the yacht Seabird lay well away to the southward and eastward of Silver Bay, the reckoning being that she was from the bay a hundred-and-thirty miles as a crow flies. The gale had not come on the schooner suddenly. The Duke, the Marquis, and the captain were standing together when the south-west wind on which they had been sailing, began to die, and finally shook out of the sails.
It was a beautiful moonless starlight night. When the wind fell, and the sails flapped idly against the masts, the Duke turned to Captain Drew and said:
"Well, captain, what do you think of it now?"
"I don't think much of it, your grace; I think we're going to have a stiff'ner. I don't like the look of it at all."