The small gloved hand was laid on the top of the companion, and Miss White carefully went down the wooden steps. And it was with a gentleness equal to her own that Hamish shut the little doors after her.
But no sooner had she quite disappeared than the old man's manner swiftly changed. He caught hold of the companion hatch, jammed it across with a noise that was heard throughout the whole vessel; and then he sprang to the helm, with the keen gray eyes afire with a wild excitement.
"—— her, we have her now!" he said, between his teeth; and he called aloud: "Hold the jib to weather there! Off with the moorings, John Cameron! —— her, we have her now!—and it is not yet that she has put a shame on Macleod of Dare!"
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE PRISONER.
The sudden noise overhead and the hurried trampling of the men on deck were startling enough; but surely there was nothing to alarm her in the calm and serious face of this man who stood before her. He did not advance to her. He regarded her with a sad tenderness, as if he were looking at one far away. When the beloved dead come back to us in the wonder-halls of sleep, there is no wild joy of meeting: there is something strange. And when they disappear again, there is no surprise: only the dull aching returns to the heart.
"Gertrude," said he, "you are as safe here as ever you were in your mother's arms. No one will harm you."
"What is it? What do you mean?" said she, quickly.
She was somewhat bewildered. She had not expected to meet him thus suddenly face to face. And then she became aware that the companion-way by which she had descended into the saloon had grown dark: that was the meaning of the harsh noise.