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But nothing had been seen from there of the missing craft, and though he traversed the entire distance by way of the cliffs, he saw nothing throughout his walk but flecks of foam here and there over the tumbling expanse of water. He returned an hour or so later, reaching Old Silverstrand by five. But nothing had been heard there. The fishermen shook their heads when he questioned them.
Later in the evening, when Mab also was sufficiently restored to appear on deck, the cruiser steamed into Silverstrand Harbour, and the two voyagers were landed by one of her boats, in the midst of great rejoicing on the quay. Seton, who had long since returned from a fruitless search for tidings, was among the crowd of spectators.
"New Silverstrand would be more to your taste, I fancy," said Merefleet, reluctantly forced to speak. The smile on the beautiful face developed into a wicked little gleam of amusement. "That's so, I daresay," said the high voice. "But you see, I wasn't consulted. I've just got to go where I'm taken." She sank into a chair opposite Merefleet and leant forward. Merefleet sat perfectly rigid.
Far away over at New Silverstrand, a band was playing, and the music came floating across the harbour with the silvery sweetness which water imparts. The lights of the new town were very bright. It looked like a dream-city seen from afar. "I guess we are just a couple of Peris shut outside," said Mab in her brisk, unsentimental voice. "I like it best outside, don't you, Big Bear?"
Seton, learning the news when lunch was half over, rushed off to New Silverstrand in the hope that the boat might have been driven in that direction by the strong current.
No pleasure-boats or craft of any sort put out from Silverstrand that afternoon. The wind eventually blew away the clouds and revealed a foaming, sunlit sea. But the waves were immense at high tide, and the fishermen muttered among themselves and stared darkly out over the mighty breakers.
He wanted to bury himself in an unknown fishing-town and associate with the simple, unflurried fisher-folk alone. It was a dream of his a dream which he had imagined near its fulfilment when he had arrived in the peaceful little world of Old Silverstrand. There was a large and fashionable watering-place five miles away. This was New Silverstrand, a town of red brick, self-centred and prosperous.
He said nothing, however, and they went in together in unbroken silence. Mab did not reappear that night. A fortnight passed away and Merefleet was still at the hotel at Old Silverstrand. Mab was there also, the idol of the fisher-folk, and an unfailing source of interest and admiration to casual visitors at the hotel.
But he had not thought that its visitors would have overflowed into the old fishing-town. He himself saw no attraction there save the peace of the shore and the turmoil of the sea. He had known and loved the old town in his youth, long before the new one had been built or even thought of. For New Silverstrand was a growth of barely ten years.
Young Seton greeted Merefleet with less cordiality than he had displayed on the previous evening. There was a suggestion of caution in his manner that created a somewhat unfavourable impression in Merefleet's mind. Already he was beginning to wonder how these two came to be thus isolated in the forgotten little town of Old Silverstrand. It was not a natural state of affairs.
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