Professor Lundström then suggested that the whole party go ashore, and let him take the boat so that he might go back to Strömstad and change his clothes. As it was only a short sail, the boat could return for them whenever they wished.
But they had had enough of Gray Island. No one felt the least desire to step ashore and climb the threatening cliff.
As they sailed back to Strömstad they must have wondered if after all there was not some truth in the old myth about the island. In any case, it was a strange coincidence that the mishap should have occurred just there. They had been to most of the other little islands of the Strömstad skerries, and all had gone well.
"I thought it almost uncanny when the child began to cry," said one of the sisters Tobiaeson. "I knew then that something would happen."
"Now what does Lieutenant Lagerlöf think about it?" queried the other sister.
"What do I think? Well," he replied, "I say it couldn't have turned out differently when we sent a school-priest like him ashore. He was no man for Tita Gray."
"Do you mean. Lieutenant, that if we had sent another—yourself perhaps—we would have had a better reception?"
"Gad, yes!" exploded the Lieutenant.
Lord, how they laughed! The pall of gloom lifted in
