They sat by the fire listening to the pathetic chime of the two bells, whose voices were almost hidden in the loud sea voices that enveloped the little island with their cries. Presently the painter shifted in his armchair.
"There is something—I—there is something very eerie to me in the sound of those two bells now I know why they are ringing, and who is ringing them," he said, with a slight irritation. "Don't you find they affect your nerves at all?"
"No. I like to hear them. They tell me that one poor creature is happy. The Skipper—all we Island folk call him so—believes he will bring his mates safe to shore some day. And each time he sets those bells going he thinks the happy hour is perhaps close at hand."
"Poor fellow! And he is summoning the drowned to come up out of their world."
They sat silent again for three or four minutes. Then Sir Graham said:
"Uniacke, you have finished your tea?"
"Yes, Sir Graham."
"Has your day's work tired you very much?"
"No."
"Then I wish you would do me a favour. I want to see your skipper. Can I get into the church?"