"I think there's a lighter alongside of her, isn't there?" said Slingsby.
Strange, whose eyesight was remarkable, answered:
"Some carbonate of soda," said Slingsby, with a grin. They went into the cockpit, leaving the door open.
It was a hot night, and in a café beyond the trees a band was playing the compelling music of _Louise_. Strange listened to it, deeply stirred. Life had so changed for him that he had risen from the depths during the last weeks. Then Slingsby raised his hand.
With the distant music there mingled now the creaking of a winch. Strange extinguished the light, and both men crept out from the cockpit. The sound came from the _Santa Maria del Pilar_, and they could see the spar of her hoisting tackle swing out over the lighter and inboard over the ship's deck.
"She's loading," said Strange, in a low voice.
"Yes," answered Slingsby; "she's loading." And his voice purred like a contented cat.
He slept on a bed made up in the saloon that night. Strange in his tiny cabin, and at nine o'clock the next morning, as they sat at breakfast, they saw the _Santa Maria del Pilar_ make for the sea.
"We ought to follow, oughtn't we?" said Strange anxiously.
"But she'll do nine knots in this breeze." Strange watched her with the eye of knowledge as she leaned over ever so slightly from the wind. "She might give us the slip."
"She will," he answered. "We are not after her, my friend. Got your chart?"
Strange fetched it from the locker and spread it out on the table.
"Do you see a small island with a lighthouse?"
"Four miles west-south-west of the lighthouse. Got it?"
"How long will it take you to get to that point?"
"Five to five and a half hours forced draught."
"Good. Suppose we start at six this evening."
The _Boulotte_ went away to the minute. At eight it began to grow dark, but no steaming light was hoisted on the mast, and no sidelamps betrayed her presence. In the failing light she became one with the sea but for the tiniest wisp of smoke from her chimney, and soon the night hid that. A lantern flashed for a while here and there on the forward deck in the centre of a little group, and then Slingsby came back to Strange at the wheel.
Nights at sea! The cool, dark tent of stars, the hiss and tinkle of waves against the boat's side, the dinghy, slung out upon the davits, progressing above the surface of the water, the lamp light from the compass striking up on the brasswork of the wheel and the face of the steersman; to nights at sea Strange owed all the spacious moments of his crippled life. But this night was a sacred thing. He was admitted to the band of the young strong men who serve, like a novice into the communion of a church; and his heart sang within his breast as he kept the _Boulotte_ to her course. At a quarter past eleven he rang the telegraph and put the indicator to "slow." Five minutes later he stopped the engine altogether. Four miles away to the north-eastward a light brightened and faded.