there, or I’ll have the law of you.”

“Get out of the place, you contemptible, tale-bearing sneak!” said Harry; and he accompanied his words with lash after lash of a big old-fashioned dog-whip. “How dare you come here with your miserable stories! Out with you, you dog, or I’ll lash you till you are blue!”

There could be no doubt but that some of the strokes administered would leave blue weals, though Zekle did not get many. Four or five fell upon his back and sides, however, before he got out of the door; and he was just turning to shake his fist and vow vengeance when a tremendous lash curled round him, inflicting so much pain that he uttered a loud yell and ran as hard as he could to a safe distance, where he turned once to shout, “Yah, coward!” and then disappeared.

“Coward!” said Harry bitterly. “Well, people say I am. Don’t be frightened, dear,” he continued as his mother entered the room in haste.

“But I am, my dear,” she cried excitedly. “What does all this mean?”

“I only used the dog-whip to a scoundrel—that’s all,” he said, with a reassuring smile; and as soon as he had pacified her he went outside to walk up and down and think about his late escape.

“No,” he said at last after a long thought, during which he had gone well over his adventures that evening; “I will not believe that a man could be such a wretch.”

He felt better after this and went in; but that night the excitement of the adventure and the effects of his immersion were sufficient to keep him awake hour after hour, while when he dropped off into an uneasy slumber it was for his mind to be haunted by dreams in which he was being dragged down into the depths of the sea by a strange monster that clung to his limbs and writhed about him, making him shudder as he felt the chilling embrace.

Again and again he awoke and tried to shake off the unpleasant sensation, but no sooner did he drop off to sleep again than the horrible dream came back, gathering in intensity as the time wore on.

Then came a variation. Mark Penelly was the creature that was trying to drown him; and as he dragged him down and down, lower and lower, into the depths, he kept telling him that it was because he was such a terrible coward, but that if he would dive off Carn Du into a ninth wave he would let him live.

This went on till it grew unbearable, so, leaping out of bed, Harry went to the window, drew up the blind, and threw open the casement, to lean out and gaze at the grey sea, that looked so dark in the early dawn of morning.

It was as smooth as a pond, except where, with a low moan, it heaved up and beat against Carn Du, falling back with an angry hiss as if of disappointment, while all above looked calm and dark and starlit.

Away to the east, though, there was a faint light, telling of the coming day; and as Harry Paul stood there, with the soft fresh morning breeze blowing in his hair, he made up his mind that he would go and fish for three or four hours before breakfast, as he could not sleep.

A good wash made him feel fresher. Then dressing, he took a couple of lines from a cupboard down-stairs, and went out.

He had no difficulty in getting half-a-dozen damaged mackerel down in the harbour—fish that had been torn by the nets; but he was only just in time, for in the soft grey light he could see the gulls already busy floating down on their ghostly-looking wings in the gloom, uttering a mournful, peevish wail, and carrying off fragments of fish for their morning meal.

“Another ten minutes, and there would not have been one left,” muttered Harry, as he strode along the rock-strewn shore to where his boat was drawn up high and dry. He, however, soon had her afloat, and, taking one of the oars, he stood up in the stern and sculled her out with that peculiar fish-tail motion which is so puzzling to one not used to the custom.

Half an hour’s sculling took him out to a great buoy close by some sunken rocks; and having made fast his boat to the rusty, barnacle-encrusted ring, he proceeded to bait his lines, and lowered down the leads into the deep water below.

“What’s it to be this morning?” he said. “They ought to bite on such a tide as this.”

He held one line in his hand, twisted the other round one of the thole-pins of the boat, and then sat waiting. There was black Carn Du right in front, with the waters rising up dark and glistening, to fall back fringed with pale ghostly white.

Then, as no fish bit to take up his attention, he began to think of the great black mass of rock, and to ask himself whether it was worth his while to go that or the next evening, and, climbing up, take the plunge as he had seen so many young men take it before.

“If I did,” he said, “it would please a good many people, and they would no longer look upon me as a coward. I think I could—I feel sure I could. But if I did take the dive how people would triumph after all, and say that I was stung into doing it by what they had said!”

“No,” he added, after a little more consideration; “they may say what they like. I’ll hold to my determination. Coward or no, I’m not going to prove my courage for the sake of gratifying busy tattling people. Better remain a coward all my— Ah, that’s one!”

A sharp snatch at his line, followed by a long peculiar drag, told him what was at his bait; and after a little giving and taking, he drew a heavy twining conger eel over the boat’s edge, having no little difficulty in preventing it from tangling his line, for it was quite a yard in length, and proportionately thick.

His captive was, however, soon safe in the large basket, and he had hardly closed the lid and placed a boulder used as ballast upon it before a tug at his other line made the thole-pin rattle, and after a little hauling he dragged in a gloriously-coloured gurnard, whose outspread fins looked like the wings of some lovely butterfly. Then he drew in, one after the other, a couple of wrasse, all grey and green and gold, with their protuberant mouths and curious teeth, after which there was a pause, and, drawing up one of his lines, Harry placed thereon a much larger hook, bound with wire right up the cord that held it. Upon this he placed quite half a mackerel, secured it well to the hook with a piece of string, and then, throwing it over the side, he waited, after feeling the lead touch the rock below, and wondered whether he should capture what he believed to be lurking amongst the ledges of the piece of rock.

“I may either get a conger or a good hake,” he thought to himself. “There’s always someone glad of a good hake.”

He waited with all a fisherman’s patience, and, used as he was to such scenes, he could not help feeling gladdened at the glorious sight that met his gaze, for, one by one, the stars had paled, till only that named after the morning shone out resplendent in the now grey west; while to eastward all was blushing with bright red and gold and purple and orange, tints so wondrously beautiful and rich that Nature had enough to spare for sea as well as sky. While the latter was growing moment by moment more refulgent, the former caught the wondrous dyes, till the water seemed everywhere like molten gold with ruddy and empurpled reflections where the sea gave a gentle heave. Even the gulls and shags that floated on the tide seemed to be glorified by the wondrous colour, till Harry, as he sat there with the stout cord of his fishing-line twisted round his hand, felt how majestic and awe-inspiring was the coming of the new-born day, and involuntarily exclaimed:

“Who would stay in bed if they knew what the dawn is like on such a morn as this!”

So rapt was he in the grandeur of the scene that he had forgotten all about the object of his journey, but he was brought back to the matter-of-fact present