"Good-bye!"
"Come," said Greeba, and she drew at the hand of Sunlocks.
"Good-bye! Good-bye!" said Jason.
But Sunlocks held back a moment, and then in a voice that faltered and broke he said, "Jason—kiss me."
At the next moment they were gone into the darkness and the falling snow—Sunlocks and Greeba, hand in hand, and their child asleep at its mother's bosom.
Jason stood a long hour at the open door, and listened. He heard the footsteps die away; he heard the creak of the crazy wooden jetty; he heard the light plash of the oars as the boat moved off; he heard the clank of the chain as the anchor was lifted; he heard the oars again as the little smack moved down the bay, and not another sound came to his ear through the silence of the night.
He looked across the headland to where the sloop of war lay outside, and he saw her lights, and their two white waterways, like pillars of silver, over the sea. All was quiet about her.
Still he stood and listened until the last faint sound of the oars had gone. By this time a woolly light had begun to creep over the mountain tops, and a light breeze came down from them.
"It is the dawn," thought Jason. "They are safe."
He went back into the house, pulled down the sheepskin from the window, and lit the candle again. After a search he found paper and pens and wax in a cupboard and sat down to write. His hand was hard, he had never been to school, and he could barely form the letters and spell the words. This was what he wrote: