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Of the peril of these seas our captain had often spoken, and when, leaving the stillness of Loch Laxford, we renewed our northward journey, we soon perceived that his language was not exaggerated. From the mouth of Loch Laxford to Cape Wrath the whole coast might have represented to Dante the scowling ramparts of hell. Of anything in the nature of a beach no trace was discernible.
This was specially true of Loch Laxford the last of such inland shelters lying south of Cape Wrath Cape Wrath, the lightning of whose lanterns and the boom of whose great foghorns send out warnings to those on "seas full of wonder and peril," which Swinburne's verse commemorates.
Spender, knowing nothing of Crawford's change of plan, and anxious to convey to him the latest instructions, went off on a wild-goose chase to the Highlands of Scotland, where he spent the best part of an unhappy week watching the waves tumbling in Lough Laxford, and looking as anxiously as Tristan for the expected ship.
Thus renovated, and after a delay of some days, caused by trifling mishaps, she left the Cattegat behind and steered a course for British waters. The original plan had been to set a course for Iceland, and, when north of the Shetlands, to turn to the southward to Lough Laxford, the agreed rendezvous with Spender.
We were soon rolling more disagreeably than ever. But this added annoyance did not last for long. Something or other happened. The motion of the vessel became easier, and at last, peeping into my cabin, Saxton Noble announced that we were back again in Loch Laxford. The megaphones of Cape Wrath had announced that a fog was coming.
He was to let Spender know later where he could be reached with final instructions as to landing the arms; the rendezvous so agreed upon subsequently was Lough Laxford, a wild and inaccessible spot on the west coast of Sutherlandshire. Crawford was warned by B.S. that he was far from confident of a successful end to their labours at Hamburg.
He did not care to speak of the northern waters: of Tay, which the Roman invaders compared to Tiber; of Laxford, the river of salmon; or of the "thundering Spey."
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