The _Fortune's_ sails creaked and her gear rattled as her men hauled up her canvas for her homeward voyage.
She weighed anchor and slowly moved on her first tack, bright in the golden sunshine of a perfect Indian summer morning.
"Be brave, and wave a gay farewell to the little lass," said Stephen Hopkins. "And may God fend her from harm on her way, and lead her over still waters all her days."
"Oh, amen, amen, Father!" sobbed Constance. "She can't see we are crying while we wave to her so blithely. But it is the harder part to stay behind."
"With me, my lass?" asked Stephen Hopkins, smiling tenderly down on his usually courageous little pioneer.
"Oh, no; no indeed! Forgive me, Father! The one hard thing would be to stay anywhere without thee," cried Constance, smiling as brightly as she had just wept bitterly. The _Fortune_ leaned over slightly, and sailed at a good speed down the harbour, Humility's white signal of farewell hanging out over the boat's stern, discernable long after the girl's plump little figure and pink round face, all washed white with tears, had been blotted out by intervening space.
Before the _Fortune_ had gone wholly out of sight Francis Billington came over the marsh grass that edged the sand, sometimes running for a few steps, sometimes lagging; his whole figure and air eloquent of catastrophe.
"What can ail Francis Billington?" exclaimed Stephen Hopkins.
"He looks ghastly," cried Constance. "Father, it can't be--Giles?" she whispered.
"Bad news of him!" cried her father quickly, turning pale. "Nonsense, no; of course not."
Nevertheless he strode toward the boy hastily and caught him by the arm.
"What aileth thee; speak!" he ordered him.
"Jack. Jack is--Jack----" Francis stammered.
"Oh, is it Jack?" cried Stephen Hopkins, relieved, though he could have struck himself a moment later for the seeming heartlessness of his excusable mistake.
"What has Jack done now? He is always getting into mischief, but I am sure you need have no fear for him. But now that I look at you----. Why, my poor lad, what is it? No harm hath befallen your brother?"
Constance uttered a cry, and her father fell back a step or two, shocked and sorry.
"Forgive me, Francis; I had no notion of this. I never thought John Billington, the younger, could come to actual harm--so daring, so reckless, but so strong and able to take care of himself! Dead! Francis, it can't be. You are mistaken. Where is Doctor Fuller?"