"Then cast off at once," and immediately there was movement all through
the boat--the sound of setting sail, the lifting of the anchor, the rush
of steam, and the hoarse melancholy voices of the sailors. Then the man
laid his hand on the wheel, and with wind and tide in her favor, the
yacht was soon racing down the great North Sea.

"It is Yoden's time at the wheel, sir," said the Captain. "If so be he
is wanted."

"He is not wanted yet. I am going to take her as far as the Hoy--if it
suits you, Captain."

"Take your will, sir. I am always well suited with it."

Now John Hatton was a cotton-spinner, but he knew the ways of a boat,
and the winds and tides that would serve her, and the road southward she
must take; and at his will she went, as if she was a solan flying for
the rocks. When they first started, the sea-birds were dozing on their
perches, waiting for the dawn, and their unwonted silence lent a
stronger sense of loneliness to the gray, misty waters. But as they
approached the pillars of Hoy, the wind rose and the waves swelled
refulgent in the crimsoning east.

Then the man at the wheel was seen in all his great beauty--a man of
lofty stature perfectly formed and full of power and grace in every
movement. His head had an antique massiveness and was crowned with
bright brown hair thrown backward. His forehead was wide and
contemplative, his eyes large and gray and thickly fringed, lustrous but
_not_ piercing. His loving and vehement soul was not always at their