“No. I have had some offers, but I prefer to leave the thing open. But you have not told me how you got here yet,” Lavender added, continually breaking away from the subject of the pictures.
“In the Phœbe,” Eyre said.
“Is she in the bay?”
“Oh, no. We had to leave her at Port Ellen to get a few small repairs done, and Mosenberg and I came on by road to Port Ascaig. Mind you, she was quite small enough to come round the Mull at this time of year.”
“I should think so. What’s your crew?”
“Two men and a lad, besides Mosenberg and myself; and I can tell you we had our hands full sometimes.”
“You’ve given up open boats with stone ballast, now,” Lavender said with a laugh.
“Rather. But it was no laughing matter,” Eyre added, with a sudden gravity coming over his face. “It was the narrowest squeak I ever had, and I don’t know now how I clung on to that place till the day broke. When I came to myself and called out for you, I never expected to hear you answer; and in the darkness, by Jove! your voice sounded like the voice of a ghost. How you managed to drag me so far up that sea-weed I can’t imagine; and then the dipping down and under the boat—”
“It was that dip down that saved me,” Lavender said. “It brought me to, and made me scramble like a rat up the other side as soon as I felt my hands on the rock again. It was a narrow squeak, as you say, Johnny. Do you remember how black the place looked when the first light began to show in the sky? and how we kept each other awake by calling? and how you called ‘Hurrah!’ when we heard Donald? and how strange it was to find ourselves so near the mouth of the harbor, after all? During the night I fancied we must have been thrown on Battle Island, you know.”
“I do not like to hear about that,” young Mosenberg said. “And always, if the wind came on strong or if the skies grew black, Eyre would tell me all the story over again when we were in the boat coming down by Arran and Cantyre. Let us go out and see if they come with the deer. Has the rain stopped?”