tried to scale the cleft, so to reach the heights of the main island; but the steep rocks gave no sufficient foothold, and he dropped back into the water bruised and discomfited. Tunnels and archways there were, too low and strait to let him pass. Attempting an arch, submerged like the way of his entrance, his broad shoulders got wedged, and he struggled back, strangling, spent, and warned against needless hazards.

He never noticed that in the great cavern one after another the rays of sunlight overhead shifted and withdrew, till twilight, advancing below, surprised him. His reckoning of time had been lost utterly, charmed out of him in the vast of beauty and mystery. In a moment he also realised that the lowest tiers of rocks had vanished below the water. The tide was rising. Hurriedly he shot away for return, and groped along the dim passage. The water had risen half-way towards the upper level, so that he mounted there with no difficulty, and made his way on, through the entrance cave, through the kelp-curtained cleft, and out again upon the smooth white sands.

Too late! That he knew by the sound of heavy waves booming from the outer ravine before his eyes could certify how the tide had made hours' advance, and was coming in with a strong, resistless swell that would make short work with the best swimmer alive. He scrambled up to a shoulder to get a sight of the reefs that had helped him on his way; the nearest was already gone, and a tumbling whirlpool marked its place. Except in the slack of the ebb it were madness to make the attempt. Sunlight still touched the heights, but the quick southern twilight makes short stand against night. Without question, till daybreak came with another ebb, on the Isle Sinister must he abide.

To make the best of his case, he sought while daylight lasted after shell-fish to stay his growing hunger. Then in the dusk he gathered dry weed and spread it for his couch on a ledge as high above the tide-mark as he could reach. It was a lateral cleft, as good for his purpose as any there. But he selected it not wholly with regard to comfort of body; its high remove above the mysterious footprints lent it best recommendation. For with growing darkness came a dread upon him; in an access of arrant superstition he conceived of some unimaginable thing stealing near upon woman's feet. Reason stood up for a mild human presence if any, but on ground no better than a quicksand, very lacking in substantial elements. Whence had those feet come? whither had they gone? He could not imagine a hiding too fine for his best vigilance, not in the open at least, in directions that the footprints positively indicated.

As darkness fell, all the tales that had made the place sinister in name and reputation came thronging his mind, assuming an aspect more grim than they ever before had worn. The resolution, the firm reason he had relied on for defence, began to quail before dread odds. What wonder? That day such an assault against reason had been made, such a breach lay wide and unrepaired, as left self-possession hard bestead. Then was he faithful to right worship; he prayed, and mortal terror invested him no longer.

Though faulty, ignorant, superstitious, the young fisher was, a rare sincerity ruled his spirit, an essential quality if prayer be to any purpose, even great in efficacy by its own intrinsic value.

As, crossing himself, he lay down and turned to sleep, plainly above the surf the Warders returned him the sound of a far-off bell—of three bells tolling together. He knew the voice of the House Monitory. Most comfortable was it, an expression of human commiseration extended to him, of special virtue also, he believed, to succour souls against leaguers of darkness. All night he knew, aloft on the cliff in the desolate bell tower, a monitress would serve each bell, and two would wait on a beacon-light, and the prayers of the five would not cease for souls of the living and souls of the dead, victims to fell powers of the sea. Ah, blessed bells! And ah, dear saints whose names they bear!—St. Mary, St. Margaret, St. Faith! The House Monitory prays to the dear saints; but the simple, the ignorant, who go most in peril of that dangerous coast, when they bless three names—St. Mary's, St. Margaret's, St. Faith's—do not discriminate consciously between the saints whose influence lives in heaven, and the bells that ring in evidence of how that influence lives on earth. He fell asleep.

The tide came in, crept up the sand, blotted out footprints and weeds, covered anemone pools and boulders, reached the full, turned and ebbed back again. The moon rose, and as she mounted the dark clear-cut shadows of the rocks shrank. The lad slept the dreamless sleep of healthful weariness, till midnight was long past, and a wide stretch of sand lay bare again. Then in her course the moon put back the shadows that had covered his face; his breathing grew shorter; he stirred uneasily, and woke.

Looking down, he saw the sand bared of the sea, white and glistening in the moonlight. Quite distinct came the even stroke of the bells. The night wind had chilled him, half naked as he was, so he crept from his niche and dropped to the sands below, to pace away numbness. Only a few steps he took; then he stood, and not from cold he trembled. A line of footprints crossed the sand, clear and firm, and so light, that the dainty sand-wrinkles were scarcely crushed out beneath them. And now the mark of the heel is nearest the sea.

He knelt down to peer closer, stretched a hand, and touched one footprint. Very fact it was, unless he dreamed. Kneeling still, he scanned the broken lights and shadows that clung round the margin of rock-girt sand. Ha! there in the shadow moves something white; it is gliding half hidden by boulders. A human figure goes there at ease, rising, stooping, bending to a pool. Long it bends, then with a natural gesture of arms flung up, and hands locked upon the nape, steps out into the full moonlight, clear to view.

The kneeling boy thrills to the heart at the beautiful terror. Whiter than the sands are the bare, smooth limbs, and the dark, massed hair is black as are the night-shadows. Oh! she comes. Does she see? does she care? The light, swift feet bring her nearer, straight on, without a falter. Her shadow falls upon him, and she stays and stands before him, beautiful, naked, and unabashed as a goddess.

Could she be one of God's creatures? No! Yet because she was shaped like a woman, youthful pudicity, strong in the boy, bent his head, lowered his eyes to the ground. He felt a shame she could not know, for her shadow moved, her white feet came within the range of his lowly vision. Perfect ankles, perfect feet, foam-white, wonderfully set! When the Evil One wrought in human shapes, surely his work was ever flawed as to feet!

Still kneeling, he lifted his head, encountered her gaze, and made the sign of the cross. She met his eyes with a merciless smile, but before the sign stepped back uneasily; yet her beauty remained unblighted. Then must it be that a sea-witch could be young and fair, of loveliness innate, not spell-wrought to ensnare him. He dreaded her none the less, afraid as never he had been in his life before.

And yet, because his eyes were steady to meet hers, she read such defiance as she would not suffer. She clapped her hands together, and laughed in cruel triumph till echoes sprang.

'You are a dead man. Do you know?'

He stood and fronted her boldly now, recovering faith, most needful for the encounter. By what he could see of her face it was cruel and cold as death itself, and the gleam of her eyes was like the keen, sharp glitter of a treacherous sea. For he had not seen,