A sailor was shouting on the deck outside the cabin door, and the third bell was ringing.
Gell was the last to cross the gangway.
"Good-bye and God bless you, and good luck in London! You deserve every bit of it!"
At the next moment the gangway was pulled in, the ropes were thrown aboard, and the steamer was gliding away.
The young advocates on the pier-head were beginning to make a demonstration. One of them (the wag of course) was singing a sentimental farewell in a doleful voice and the others were joining in the chorus:
"Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no come back again?"
Some of the other passengers (English commercial travellers apparently) were looking on, so to turn the edge of the joke Stowell sang also, and when his deep baritone was heard above the rest there was a burst of laughter.
"Good-bye! Good-luck! Bring it back, boy!"
Gell was standing at the sea-end of the pier, waving his cap and struggling to smile. At sight of his face Stowell felt ashamed of his own happiness. A vague shadow of something that had come to him before came again, with a shudder such as one feels when a bat strikes one in the dusk.
At the next moment it was gone. The steamer was swinging round the breakwater and opening the bay, and he was looking for a long white house (Government House) which stood on the heights above the town. He had slept there last night, and this morning Fenella, parting from him in the porch, while the Governor's high-stepping horses were champing on the gravel outside, had promised to signal to him when she saw the steamer clearing the harbour.