"Fenella...."
But just then the loud voice of the Captain cried "Strike!" and at the next moment Fenella was flying aft, to tug at the net and shake out the herrings that came up with it.
What shouts! What screams! What peals of laughter!
It was midnight before the joy and bustle of the catch were over, and the net was shot again. The Governor was then smoking his last pipe in the Captain's cabin, and Stowell, with Fenella on his arm, was walking to and fro on the deck.
"Need I tell her at all?" he was thinking.
He felt as if he were being swept along by an irresistible flood. He could not doom himself to death. With Fenella by his side he could think of nobody and nothing but her. Sometimes, when they crossed the light from the skylight, they turned their faces towards each other and smiled.
After a while Stowell found himself bantering Fenella. Catching a flash of her ring (his mother's ring) on the hand that was on his arm, he pretended it was gone and asked if it had fallen off while she was pulling at the net.
"Gone! The ring you ga— .... I mean the Deemster gave me! No, here it is! What a shock! I should have died if I had lost it."
She was radiant; he was reckless; the little trick had uncovered their hearts to each other.
They heard a step on the other side of the deck.