Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/286

272 marked the presence of a mighty intellect. The doctor saw the impression he had made upon me, and he said— "To-morrow we will show you more; you shall meet the ragged man——" "Which is mysel'," said the Scotsman, who had joined us silently, "mysel' that has'na a dud to my back. D'ye ken that when there's ony distribution o' the gudes I get a' the female apparel; which is no justice ava for a meenister, let alone a sea-faring man."

"Never mind, Dick," said the doctor laughing, as I did; "we'll beg a skirt for you the first time we say how-d'ye-do to a passenger vessel——"

"Hands, heave anchor!" roared Black at that moment; and our conversation stopped suddenly at the cry. Then slowly, as the bell rang out, the great engines began their work, and we swept out to the open sea. Night had fallen, but the aurora still gave her changing light; and as we felt the first oscillations of the rolling breakers, Black took a long look behind him to his Arctic home. There before us was the black, towering, indented coast of Greenland, the bluff headlands of, the beacons of snow all crimson in the playing colours of the mighty arc; and away beyond them, the vista of the eternal stillness, and the plain of death. A long look it was that the man of iron cast then