When I scrambled over the rocks towards the boat I found she was floating in full three fathoms of water, so that my only course was to swim out to her. This, however, was a small matter after what I had gone through. I stripped myself on one of the outlying rocks, and plunging into the water soon reached the boat and clambered over the stern. I was obliged to "slip the anchor," for the painter was tied deep below the water and had to be sacrificed. But I did not take long to recover my clothes and dress myself, and then I took to the oars with a will and rowed along the shore in search of Robbie.
Steep and frowning looked the great cliff that I had come down. I regarded it with a new interest, and felt some sense of pride and satisfaction in my narrow escape from so serious a danger. Again I took my viking's stone in my fingers, and my faith in it was complete.
Robbie was patiently waiting for me seated on one of the outer rocks in a further bay. His face brightened as he saw me rounding the point.
"Man, Ericson," he exclaimed joyfully, "I'm real glad to see ye again! I e'en thought ye'd met wi' some mischance. I was terribly feared!"
"Feared, were you? Well, so was I; but I managed all right, you see, thanks to the viking's charm."
Robbie brought on board the gun, with his rabbit and the dead gannet. And then we rowed back to Stromness. It was long past sundown when we rounded the Ness point, and the beacon lights were streaming over the bay, but we reached the little quay at the end of the Anchor Close without any mishap. Both of us were very hungry after our sport.
On that evening, I remember, I spent a very happy time at the home fireside. My uncle Mansie was there, with my father, and my mother, and Jessie. It was almost the first occasion on which I was permitted to join in the conversation with my elders. But the evening has ever since had a pathetic interest in my memory; for, as it turned out, it was the very last time that our family sat together in an unbroken circle.
"Ye're gettin' to be quite a good boatman, Hal, to gang all that way under sail," said Mansie; and then he turned to my father, saying, "When are we to hae the lad aboard the Curlew, Sandy?"
"Weel," replied my father, putting his great brown hand with affection upon my shoulder, "I hae been thinkin' it was about time he joined us. The lad has been at the school lang enough, mebbe.
"Are ye at the head o' the class yet, Halcro?"