"Do you know what you have done, Gerty?" said he, in a low voice. "Oh, you have soft, smooth, English ways; and you are like a rose-leaf; and you are like a queen, whom all people are glad to serve. But do you know that you have killed a man's life? And there is no penalty for that in the South, perhaps; but you are no longer in the South. And if you have this very night to drink a glass with me, you will not refuse it? It is only a glass of the coal-black wine!"
She struggled back from him, for there was a look in his face that frightened her. But she had a wonderful self-command.
"Is that the message I was to hear?" said she, coldly.
"Why, sweetheart, are you not glad? Is not that the only gladness left for you and for me, that we should drink one glass together, and clasp hands, and say good-by? What else is there left? What else could come to you and to me? And it may not be this night, or to-morrow night; but one night I think it will come; and then, sweetheart, we will have one more glass together, before the end."
He went on deck. He called Hamish.
"Hamish," said he, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, "I don't like the look of this evening. Did you say the sheiling was still on the island?"
"Oh yes, Sir Keith," said Hamish, with great joy; for he thought his advice was going to be taken, after all.
"Well, now, you know the gales, when they begin, sometimes last for two or three or four days; and I will ask you to see that Christina takes a good store of things to the sheiling before the darkness comes on. Take plenty of things now, Hamish, and put them in the sheiling, for I am afraid this is going to be a wild night."
Now indeed all the red light had gone away; and as the sun went down there was nothing but a spectral whiteness over the sea and the sky; and the atmosphere was so close and sultry that it seemed to suffocate one. Moreover, there was a dead calm; if they had wanted to get away from this exposed place, how could they? They could not get into the gig and pull this great yacht over to Loch Tua.
It was with a light heart that Hamish set about this thing; and Christina forthwith filled a hamper with tinned meats, and bread, and whisky, and what not. And fuel was taken ashore, too; and candles, and a store of matches. If the gales were coming on, as appeared likely from this ominous-looking evening, who could tell how many days and nights the young master--and the English lady, too, if he desired her company--might not have to stay ashore, while the men took the chance of the sea with this yacht, or perhaps seized the occasion of some lull to make for some place of shelter? There was Loch Tua, and there was the bay at Bunessan, and there was the little channel called Polterriv, behind the rocks opposite Iona. Any shelter at all was better than this exposed place, with the treacherous anchorage.