"No, no, Archie, he must see us—he cannot help seeing us!" she exclaimed. "When we are getting close to Heimra, then he cannot help seeing us—he will understand—and surely he will come back!"
And meanwhile the gale had been increasing in fury: the wind moaning low and whistling shrill alternately, the high-springing spray rattling down on the boat with a noise as of gravel. The old lugger groaned and strained and creaked—burying herself—shaking herself—reeling before the ponderous blows of the surge; but Archie gave it her well; there was no timorous shivering up into the wind. His two hands gripped the sheet—the tiller under his arm; his feet were wedged firm against the stone ballast; his mouth set hard; his eyes clear enough in spite of the driving rain and whirling foam. And now this island of Heimra was drawing nearer—if the _Sirène_ far away in the south had almost vanished.
"Look now, Archie!—look now, for I can see nothing," she said, piteously.
He raised himself somewhat; and scanned the southern horizon, as well as the heaving and breaking billows would allow.
"Aw, no, mem, the _Sirène_ is not in sight at ahl—not in sight at ahl now," he said.
She uttered a stifled little cry, as of despair.
"Archie," she said, "could you not follow down to Loch Torridon?"
"Aw, God bless us, mem, the boat would not live long in a sea like this—it is getting worse and worse every meenit——"
"Very well," said she, wearily, "very well. You have done what you could, Archie: now there is nothing but to get away back home again."
But that was not at all Big Archie’s intention.
"Indeed no, mem," said he, with decision, "I am not going aweh back to Lochgarra, and you in such a state, mem, when there is a good shelter close by, ay, and a house. It is into Heimra Bay that I am going; and there is the house; and Martha will hef your clothes dried for you, mem, and give you warm food and such things. And mebbe the gale will quiet down a little in the afternoon, or mebbe to-morrow it will quiet down, and we will get back to Lochgarra; but it is not weather for an open boat at ahl."
She made no answer. She did not seem to care. She sate there with eyes fixed and haggard: perhaps it was not the cliffs of Heimra she saw before her, but the wild headlands of Wester Ross, and a lurid and thundering sea, and a small phantom-grey yacht flying for shelter. She appeared to take no notice as they rounded the stormy point with its furious, boiling surge, and as they gradually left behind them that roaring waste of waves, escaping into the friendly quietude of the land-locked little bay. She was quite passive in Archie’s hands—getting into the small boat listlessly when the lugger had been brought to anchor; and when she stepped ashore she set out to walk up to the house, he respectfully following. But she had miscalculated her strength. For one thing, she had not tasted food since the middle of the previous day; nor had she once closed her eyes during the night. Then she was dazed with the wind and the rain; her clothes clung to her and chilled her to the bone; the feverish anxiety of the morning had left her nerves all unstrung. Indeed, she could not drag herself up the beach. She went a few steps—hesitated—turned round as if seeking for help in a piteous sort of way—then she sank on to the rocks, and abandoned herself to a passion of grief and despair, from sheer weakness.