steered directly towards it, and about an hour later were dashed against the rocks of Dago.

Then, as signals for help and cries of terror rose above the roar of wind and sea, the small boats swarmed forth from their concealment and boarded the stranded vessel. The crews killed all who were still alive on board, and plundered everything of value to be found—money, bales of goods, and provisions. They then carried everything ashore and stored it in the lower vaults of the tower. Such an expedition would often have to be repeated twice or thrice in a single night, for the deceptive light enticed vessels from three different quarters, and all went into the trap. The Master was careful to extinguish the light about two hours before daybreak, in order that no vessel should make towards his stronghold in broad daylight. Of his victims not one man was ever left alive.

They had, indeed, leagued themselves with all the fiends of Darkness and the Storm, in defiance of both Heaven and Earth.

This, then, was the sorcery by which they drew bread, meat, wine and fruit from the rocks and the sea. It was the stranded vessels that filled the chambers and vaults of the Tower of Dago with everything dear to the heart of man, and covered the rocky shore beneath the tower with that which was now dearest of all to its inmates' hearts—the fleshless bones of their brother men.

CHAPTER V
The Famine

It came to pass as the Master of the Tower of Dago had foretold. A year of famine visited the island.

There in his loneliness he had taken continual counsel of that great vital principle which he chose to associate with the Prince of Evil, but to which the learned give the name of "Gæa"—Earth.

And the Earth-demon has, in truth, diabolical humours. Between Earth and her minions, and the favourites of Heaven, there is eternal strife. It pleases Earth to let the ill weeds grow. The poppy and the corn-flower are her darlings. And yet, that child of Heaven, man's finer nature, forces her to bring forth white wheat for him! The Earth-spirit favours the savage and grosser instincts, while man does her violence by pressing upon her his nobler fruits and virtues. Man, doubtless, has a right to ask, "Why has the Creator brought forth these myriads of caterpillars and cockchafers that devastate my fruit-trees?" But surely the caterpillar and the cockchafer have an equal right to demand, "To what purpose has Earth given birth to that misshapen, two-legged creature that delights to sweep me down from my tree, and trample me under foot?" But, after all, the Earth-spirit is not the gardener's friend, but rather the caterpillar's.

The hermit in the Tower of Dago included in his studies that centre of the other infernos, the sun. He had observed that the spots and eruptions on the sun's disc exercise an influence upon the weather of our planet. He had, moreover, imbibed the wisdom of the wind and waves. He had carefully noted the migrations of whales and kingfishers, as well as the displays of the aurora borealis and the shooting stars. All these had told him that the hot days of May, which so quicken the growth of the crops, would be succeeded by a frost that would blight utterly the whole field produce of the island of Dago in a single night.

And so it happened. Not on that island alone but throughout the whole of northern Russia, the hopes of the agriculturists were shattered by that terrible frost. The capricious weather brought in its train that pestilence which attacks only the poor—Starvation.

In such circumstances larger and more powerful States may easily procure money, and tide over the evil day by purchasing grain in lands more blessed than theirs, and distributing it among their people. But a small and poverty-stricken republic like the island of Dago could not so easily get gold and silver to give in exchange for bread. The poor people had to fall back upon such nutriment as fish and cheese. "This year," they said, "we must eat no bread." That was the solution.

The old women of the island now came much more frequently to the tower to sell their flowers. But instead of gold they now begged for a little corn.

"Listen to me!" said the Master of the tower to them one day. "You want bread. Well, I know a secret which enables me to transform earth at once into corn and barley. Bring me earth, then—but rich and fertile it must be—and I will give you corn in exchange for it. However large the sack may be in which you bring the clods, just so large will be the sack of corn I will give you in return."

At first it was only the women that made the trial. They brought the magician good, dark loam in small sacks. For this they received a like quantity of wheat. The grain was such as they had never before seen. At once the strong young men were seized with the desire to participate in such profitable barter, and soon they too were carrying to the tower as heavy sacks of mother earth as their brawny arms and broad shoulders could support.

The Very Reverend Pastor Waimœner did, indeed, pronounce his anathema against all who dared to make such pilgrimages to the Satanic shrine in order to barter their own blessed earth for a stranger's accursed corn. He warned them that grain grown in such a mysterious and suspicious soil could not but give them the itch and elflock, and that one day their souls must inevitably sink for ever in the pool of fire. His threats and warnings, however, were of no avail. The people's skins did not turn black with eating the mysterious corn, neither did their hair become entangled. Their souls' welfare, they therefore reasoned, might well be equally secure.

The grain was, in fact, the best ever reaped in Brandenburg. The Russian Government had had it shipped for their northern ports. That year so many grain-laden vessels had gone on the rocks beneath the Tower of Dago, that its inmates had soon no more room to store the booty. Thus it was that they came to exchange it with the islanders for earth.

Earth! But for what purpose could the Destroying Spirit require earth?

To create!