The poor fugitives crouching in among the rocks--is it the blinding rain or the driven white surf that is in their eyes? But they have sailors' eyes; they can see through the awful storm; and their gaze is fixed on one small green point far out there in the blackness--the starboard light of the doomed ship. It wavers like a will-o'-the-wisp, but it does not recede; the old Umpire still clings bravely to her chain cables.
And amidst all the din of the storm they hear the voice of Hamish lifted aloud in lamentation:--
"Oh, the brave lad! the brave lad! And who is to save my young master now? and who will carry this tale back to Castle Dare? They will say to me, 'Hamish, you had charge of the young lad; you put the first gun in his hand; you had charge of him; he had the love of a son for you: what is it you have done with him this night?' He is my Absalom; he is my brave young lad: oh, do you think that I will let him drown and do nothing to try to save him? Do you think that? Duncan Cameron, are you a man? Will you get into the gig with me and pull out to the Umpire?"
"By God," said Duncan Cameron, solemnly, "I will do that! I have no wife; I do not care. I will go into the gig with you, Hamish; but we will never reach the yacht--this night or any night that is to come."
Then the old woman Christina shrieked aloud, and caught her husband by the arm.
"Hamish! Hamish! Are you going to drown yourself before my eyes?"
"My young master ordered me ashore: I have come ashore. But I myself, I order myself back again. Duncan Cameron, they will never say that we stood by and saw Macleod of Dare go down to his grave!"
They emerged from the shelter of this great rock; the hurricane was so fierce that they had to cling to one bowlder after another to save themselves from being whirled into the sea. But were these two men by themselves? Not likely! It was a party of five men that now clambered along the slippery rocks to the shingle up which they had hauled the gig, and one wild lightning-flash saw them with their hands on the gunwale, ready to drag her down to the water. There was a surf raging there that would have swamped twenty gigs: these five men were going of their own free will and choice to certain death--so much had they loved the young master.