Wait a moment till the next wave has passed under us--now!" In another minute the boat's head was turned from land, and she was speeding before the gale.
"In with your oars, lads, and rig the mast, reef down the sail to the last point; we must show a little to keep her dead before the wind; we shall have a tremendous sea when we are once fairly away from the shelter of the island.

This gale will soon knock up the sea, and with the cross swell from the Atlantic it will be as much as we can do to carry through it." The mast was stepped and a mere rag of sail hoisted, but this was sufficient to drive the boat through the water at a great speed.
The old fisherman was steering now, and when the sail was hoisted the four men all gathered in the stern of the boat.
"You will go between Islay and Jura, I suppose," one of the younger men said.
"Ay," his father said briefly; "the sea will be too high to windward of Islay." "Could we not keep inside Jura ?" Archie suggested; "and shelter in some of the harbours on the coast of Argyle ?" "Ay," the old man said; "could we be sure of doing that it would be right enough, but, strong as the wind is blowing her, it will be stronger still when we get in the narrow waters between the islands and the mainland, and it would be impossible to keep her even a point off the wind; then if we missed making a harbour we should be driven up through the Strait of Corrievrekan, and the biggest ship which sails from a Scottish port would not live in the sea which will be running there.

No, it will be bad enough passing between Islay and Jura; if we get safely through that I shall try to run into the narrow strait between Colonsay and Oronsay; there we should have good and safe shelter.

If we miss that, we must run inside Mull--for there will be no getting without it--and either shelter behind Lismore island far up the strait, or behind Kerara, or into the passage to Loch Etive." "It will not be the last, I hope," Archie said, "for there stands Dunstaffnage Castle, and the lands all belong to the MacDougalls.
It is but two months back I was a prisoner there, and though I then escaped, assuredly if I again get within its walls I shall never go out again.

As well be drowned here." "Then we will hope," the fisherman said, "that `tis into some other harbour that this evil wind may blow us; but as you see, young sir, the gale is the master and not we, and we must needs go where it chooses to take us." Fiercer and fiercer blew the gale; a tremendous cross sea was now running, and the boat, stout and buoyant as she was, seemed every moment as if she would be engulfed in the chaos of water.