Dona crouched in the stern of the little boat, the rain beating on her shoulders, and Pierre Blanc fumbled in the darkness for the paddles. Already there was a run in the pool where the boats were anchored, and a white wash was breaking against the steps of the quay. There was no sign of life from the cottages on the side of the hill, and they had taken the first boat to hand without difficulty. Pierre Blanc pulled out into mid-channel, and as soon as they opened up the harbour entrance they met the full force of the rising wind, which, with the strong ebb-tide, set up a short cross-sea that splashed over the low gunwale of the small boat. The rain came fiercely, blotting out the hills, and Dona, shivering in her thin shirt, felt something of hopelessness in her heart, and she wondered if perhaps it was all her fault, she had broken the luck, and this was to be the last adventure of La Mouette, which had never before sailed with a woman on board.

She looked at Pierre Blanc as he strained at the paddles, and now he was no longer smiling, he kept glancing across his shoulder at the harbour mouth. They were coming closer to the town of Fowey, she could see a group of cottages by the side of the quay, and above them rose the tower of a church.

The whole adventure had become suddenly like an evil dream from which there could be no waking, and little Pierre Blanc with his monkey face was the partner of it.

She leant forward to him, and he rested a moment on his paddles, the boat rocking in the trough of a short sea.

"I shall find the house alone," she said, "and you must wait for me in the boat, by the side of the quay."

He glanced at her doubtfully, but she spoke with urgency, laying her hand on his knee. "It is the only way," she said, "and then if I do not return, in half an hour, you must go at once to the ship."

He seemed to turn her words over in his mind, and then he nodded, but still he did not smile, poor Pierre Blanc who had never been serious before, and she guessed that he too sensed the hopelessness of the adventure. They drew close to the quay, and the sickly lantern light shone down upon their faces. The water surged round the ladder, and Dona stood up in the stern of the boat, and seized the rungs in her hand. "Do not forget, Pierre Blanc," she said, "you are not to wait for me. Give me a half hour only," and she turned swiftly, so that she should not see his anxious troubled face. She went past the few cottages towards the church, and came to the one house standing in the street, by the side of the hill.

There was a light in the lower casement, she could see the glow of it through the drawn curtains, but the street itself was deserted. She stood beneath the casement uncertainly, blowing on her cold fingers, and it seemed to her, not for the first time, that this scheme of summoning Philip Rashleigh was the most foolhardy of the whole enterprise, for surely he would soon be abed and asleep and therefore would give them no trouble. The rain beat down upon her, and she had never felt more lonely, never more helpless and more lost to action.

Suddenly she heard the casement above her head open, and in panic she flattened herself against the wall. She could hear someone lean his elbows on the sill, and the sound of heavy breathing, and then there was a scattering of ashes from a pipe, they fell upon her shoulder, and a yawn and a sigh. There was a scraping of a chair in the room within, and whoever had moved the chair asked a question and he by the window made reply in a voice that was startlingly familiar. "There is a gale of wind blowing up from the south-west," said Godolphin, "it is a pity now that you did not moor the ship up the river after all. They may have trouble with her in the morning if this weather holds."

There was silence, and Dona could feel her heart thumping in her side. She had forgotten Godolphin, and that he was brother-in-law to Philip Rashleigh. Godolphin, in whose house she had taken tea less than a week before. And here he was, within three feet of her, dropping the ash from his pipe onto her shoulder.

The foolish wager of the wig came to her mind, and she realised then that the Frenchman must have known that Godolphin would be staying with Philip Rashleigh in Fowey that night, and that side by side with the capture of the ship he had planned the seizing of Godolphin's wig.

In spite of her fear and her anxiety she smiled to herself, for surely this was sublime folly if anything was, that a man could so risk his life for the sake of a crazy wager. The thought of it made her love him the more, that beside those qualities of silence and understanding that had drawn her to him in the beginning, he should have this total indifference to the values of the world, this irrepressible madness.

Godolphin was still leaning at the open casement, she could hear his heavy breathing and his yawns, and the words he had just spoken lingered in her mind, his reference to the ship, and the moving of her up river. An idea began to take shape in her brain, whereby the summoning of the owner on board would seem legitimate; then the other voice spoke abruptly from the room inside, and the casement was suddenly closed. Dona thought rapidly, reckless now of capture, the whole crazy folly of the night rousing in her the old choking sensation of delight she had known months ago when superbly indifferent to gossip and more than a little drunk she had roystered in the streets of London.

Only this time the adventure was real, and not a practical joke, trumped up to alleviate the boredom of the small hours when the London air was stifling, and Harry too insistent in his claims. She turned away from the window, and went to the door, and without hesitation jangled the great bell that hung outside.

The sound was greeted by the immediate barking of dogs, and then footsteps, and the drawing of bolts, and to her consternation Godolphin himself stood there, a taper in his hand, his great bulk filling the doorway. "What do you want?" he said angrily, "don't you know the hour, it's close on midnight, and everyone abed."

Dona crouched back out of the light, as though timid at the reception he gave her. "Mr. Rashleigh is wanted," she said, "they sent me for him. The master is anxious to move the ship now, before the gale worsens."

"Who is it?" called Philip Rashleigh from within, and all the while the dogs were barking and scratching at her legs, and Godolphin was kicking them back. "Down, Ranger, you devil, get back, Tancred," and then, "Come inside, boy, can't you?"

"No, sir, I'm wet through to the skin, if you would please tell Mr. Rashleigh they have sent for him, from the ship," and already she began to edge away, for he was staring down at her, his brows drawn together in perplexity, as though there was something about her appearance that he did not understand, that was irregular. Once more Philip Rashleigh called out in irritation from the room within: "Who the devil is it then, is it Dan Thomas's boy, from Polruan, is it young Jim?"

"Not so fast, then," called Godolphin, laying a hand upon Dona's shoulder. "Mr. Rashleigh would talk to you, is your name Jim Thomas?"

"Yes, sir," said Dona, snatching insanely at the straw he offered her, "and the matter is urgent, the master says would Mr. Rashleigh go on board at once, there is no time to lose, the ship is in danger. Let me go, sir, I have another message to deliver, my mother is desperately ill, I must run now for a physician."

But still Godolphin kept his hand on her shoulder, and now he brought the taper close to her face. "What have you round your head?" he said. "Are you ill, also, as well as your mother?"

"What is all this nonsense?" shouted Rashleigh, coming into the hall. "Jim Thomas's mother has been in her grave these ten years. Who is it? What's wrong with the ship?" And now Dona shook herself clear from the hand that held her, and calling to them over her shoulder to make haste, the gale was freshening all the while, she ran across the square and down to the quay, hysterical laughter rising in her throat, with one of Rashleigh's dogs barking at her heels.