The day came for our departure.

There was no longer anything to detain us on Endeavour Island.

The _Ghost's_ stumpy masts were in place, her crazy sails bent.

All my handiwork was strong, none of it beautiful; but I knew that it would work, and I felt myself a man of power as I looked at it.
"I did it! I did it! With my own hands I did it!" I wanted to cry aloud.
But Maud and I had a way of voicing each other's thoughts, and she said, as we prepared to hoist the mainsail: "To think, Humphrey, you did it all with your own hands ?" "But there were two other hands," I answered.

"Two small hands, and don't say that was a phrase, also, of your father." She laughed and shook her head, and held her hands up for inspection.
"I can never get them clean again," she wailed, "nor soften the weather-beat." "Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour," I said, holding them in mine; and, spite of my resolutions, I would have kissed the two dear hands had she not swiftly withdrawn them.
Our comradeship was becoming tremulous, I had mastered my love long and well, but now it was mastering me.