"Quick, rig up a sail forward and fly a yard; and do you, seaman, look to your charts and say where we are." "That I have done long since," said the sailor.

"We are scarce a league from the Holy Island, and 'tis full time we put her head out, sir." "Come and take the helm then." For a while it seemed as if we were to expect as wild a tempest from the south as ever we had met from the east.

But towards evening, the wind slackened a bit, and, veering south-east, enabled us to stand clear of the coast, and make, battered and ill canvassed as we were, straight for the Scotch Forth.
The maiden slept all through that night, and when at dawn she came on deck, fresh and singing, we were tumbling merrily through a slackening sea, with the Bass Rock looming on the horizon.
"Methinks the jaded Greek felt not otherwise when, leaving behind him the blood-stained plains of Troy, he espied the cloud-topped mountains of Hellas," said the poet, who joined us as we stood.
"Which means," said the maiden, "you are glad ?" "Shall Pyramus rejoice to see the wall that hides him from his Thisbe?
or Hector leap at the trumpet which parts him from his Andromache?
Mistress mine, in yonder rock shall I read my doom ?" "Rather read us your ode, Sir Poet," said she.

"It has had a stormy hatching, and should be a tempestuous outburst." "As indeed you shall find it, if I have your leave to rehearse it," said he.
"I beg no greater favour," said she.
Then the poet poured out this brave sonnet:-- "Go, grievous gales, your heads that heave, Ye foam-flaked furies of the wasty deep.
Ye loud-tongued Tritons, wind and wave.
Go fan my love where she doth sleep, And tell her, tell her in her ear Her Corydon sits sighing here.
"The tempest stalks the stormy sea, The lightning leaps with lurid light, The glad gull calls from lea to lea, The whistling whirlwind fills the night; Bears each a message to my love, Whose stony heart I faint to move." "'Tis too short," said the maiden, "we shall be friends, I hope, long enough to hear more of it." "Meanwhile, Sir Poet," said Ludar, who chafed at these civilities, "go forward again, and keep the watch.

Call if you spy aught, and keep your eyes well open." Fortune favoured us that day, as she had handled us roughly in the days before.