THE LIGHTHOUSE 239handing a flower to a lady at a window (so courteoushis manner was). But he was shabby, and simple,eating bread and cheese; and yet he was leadingthem on a great expedition where, for all she knew,they would be drowned.

'That was where she sunk,’ said Macalister’s boysuddenly.

'Three men were drowned where we are now,’ saidthe old man. He had seen them clinging to the masthimself. And Mr Ramsay taking a look at the spotwas about, James and Cam were afraid, to burst out:But I beneath a rougher sea,and if he did, they could not bear it; they wouldshriek aloud; they could not endure another ex-plosion of the passion that boiled in him; but to theirsurprise all he said was ‘Ah’ as if he thought to him-self, But why make a fuss about that? Naturallymen are drowned in a storm, but it is a perfectlystraightforward affair, and the depths of the sea (hesprinkled the crumbs from his sandwich paper overthem) are only water after all. Then having lightedhis pipe he took out his watch. He looked at itattentively; he made, perhaps, some mathematicalcalculation. At last he said, triumphantly:

‘Well done!' James had steered them like a bornsailor.

There! Cam thought, addressing herself silentlyto James. You’ve got it at last. For she knewthat this was what James had been wanting, andshe knew that now he had got it he was so pleasedthat he would not look at her or at his father orat any one. There he sat with his hand on thetiller sitting bolt upright, looking rather sulky and

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