At last he raised himself on the water, bending the gunwale low, and half fell, half crawled into the boat. Indifferently, he noticed that it was named Fionnaghal. Clearly it had drifted away from moorings; for not only were oars and sail-enveloped mast lying taut under the thwarts, but a rope trailed from the bow far down into the water.
He rowed for some time. At last, becoming weary, or perhaps puzzled by the mists which crept behind and all around him, he desisted. A flurry of air struck his right cheek. Instinctively he put up the palm of his hand to feel if the wind were coming from the south-east or the south-west. Then, adjusting the mast and setting the sail, he seated himself at the tiller.
Eddy followed eddy, and soon a breeze blew freshly from the south-east. By the time the Fionnaghal was three or four miles to the north-west of Innisròn, there was not a mist upon the sea. Immeasurably vast it stretched; blue, or glittering in a diamond-sparkle sheen, or wimpling over in violet hollows, with the white lambs beginning to collect and leap merrily onward in the pathway of the sun.
Alastair became drowsy with the warmth of the glow upon his back and the chime of the sea-music. Long before noon he slept. For hours the boat went idly adrift.
When he woke, he saw an island less than half a mile to starboard. Looking northward, he could descry nothing but sea; to the westward, nothing but sea; nothing but sea to the southward. Far eastward, a dim blue line of hills rose above the horizon: here and there—lying apparently against it, and scarce bigger to his eye than the gannets and sea-mews which flew overhead—two or three patches of amethyst. These were the isles he had left, though he did not recognise them: Ithona, most westerly; Innisròn, remote in the south-east; I-na-Trilleachan-tràhad, lost in its northerly purple-greys.
Though the words brought no meaning to him, or awakened nothing beyond mere visual reminiscence, his lips, as he looked at the island he was now approaching, framed its name, "I-Mònair."
Heedless of the fact that he was running straight upon a shore set with reefs like gigantic teeth, he tautened the sail and let the boat rush forward, and was almost havened when, with a grinding rip, the Fionnaghal stopped, filled, leaned over, and hung upon a jagged reef, as a dead body suspended on the horn that has gored it.
Alastair was thrown forward by the shock. Bruised and stunned, he lay motionless for a few seconds while the water poured over him. Then, rising and casting a keen glance around, he stepped on to the reef, sprang thence to a rock nearer the shore, and thence to the shore itself.
As he left the boat, it split. The larger half went drifting on the tide.
He sat down to watch idly for the disappearance of the few planks which remained. Suddenly, without cause, he rose, stared wildly at the sea and along the shore on either hand, and then moved rapidly inland—often casting furtive glances behind him, now on the one side, now on the other.