Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/182

162 "Listen, oh, listen, Joan!" said Garth suddenly.

Far off and faint, yet clear above the throb and creak of the boat, there came a sound,—a melancholy note, sad, remote, beautiful.

"It's our bell," whispered Garth. "Our own fog-bell!"

The next moment he had hung himself halfway over the rail, to the alarm of several bystanders.

"There's the Ailouros!" he shouted.

"Where? Which one?" said Joan, pulling him back by his sailor collar.

"Just coming in!" he cried. "Oh, you must know her, Joan. Don't you see the green stripe around her and the little patch in her sail?"

"Of course I do now," Joan said; "and I can see your father, too."

It seemed as though the Pettasantuck would never have done with backing and warping, so long did she take to make her landing. The Ailouros came in and lay beside the pier. Jim stood up in front of the sail and sent a long semaphore message, which neither Joan nor Garth understood. He was at the gangplank when they finally came ashore, and he held Garth very tightly.