As we came abreast of Loch Dunvegan, still going steadily, I abandoned my half-formed plan of entering and anchoring between the islands of Mingay and Isay, where there is good shelter, as a Waternish man had told me, and where we could have devoted the rest of the day to getting things shipshape, particularly in the piled-up mess that was the cabin. To tell the truth, I did not care to let the Crew remain in the cabin while the engine was going. I did not feel like taking any chances until I knew my mechanism a bit better, for I could still see very vividly the flash of that naked tongue of flame over a wildly flooding carburettor when we had started her up in the morning. There was a hatch over the forecastle, through which one could push up on to the deck in an emergency, but in the event of such an emergency arising it might not be altogether wise to complicate its pattern with fore-hatch acrobatics.

Moreover the day was fine, and all that wild shore, with its towering basaltic cliffs, that forms the north-west coast of Skye, might be a good place to get round while the going was good, particularly as it is exposed on the south-west to the full force of the prevailing swells and provides no sheltering anchorage of any kind.

I asked the Crew how she felt about it. She smiled and turned away, and all in a moment I saw she was so sick with excitement that her dry lips refused to come adrift.

The sea’s depth had got her, a depth so near that she could have leaned over and put her fingers into it; and nothing between her and it but thin planking upon which some hundredweights of defective metal beat its devil’s tatoo. A sense of insecurity so awful, so imminent, that sheer sick apprehension kept her head up—lest she see the distant bottom too clearly. And for the rest, she had absolute reason to have confidence neither in the navigator nor the boat.

Some understanding of this came upon me in a wave, and I laughed. She had encouraged me in my mad courses! And I could see by that smile that she was not giving in now. It was faint perhaps, a trifle wan, but game. I rallied her, pointing out our perfect security. The day was so fine that if the boat sank under us, we could row ashore in the dinghy. But she moved my talk aside and pointed to a great dark-hulled steam yacht, her varnished lifeboats swung out on their davits, now coming out of Dunvegan Loch. We watched until we could clearly see three white caps on the bridge and the steady stare of faces that must have wondered and smiled. The Crew gave a salute, and three caps were lifted. The courtesy of ships that pass on the high seas!

The yacht disappeared towards the distant haze of Harris, and we settled back into our own world. The sun was very hot and we took off our jackets. I brought the compass into use for the first time. I had had to stand to see over the high deck of the cabin. I now got the bearing of Dunvegan Head on the compass and sitting in a corner of the low cockpit extended one arm along the tiller and the other along the rail. The Crew made herself comfortable in the other corner.