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CHAPTER XXXII
DIVINATION

Well satisfied with this day's work the Deemster drove from the Ramsey court-house to midday dinner with his father-in-law, the old archdeacon, taking Jarvis Kerruish with him. Mona he sent home in the lumbering car driven by the coroner. It suited well with the girl's troubled mind to be alone, and when night fell in and the Deemster had not returned, the grim gloom of the lonely house on Slieu Dhoo brought her no terrors. But toward nine o'clock the gaunt silence of the place was broken, and from that time until long after midnight Ballamona was a scene of noise and confusion.

First came blind Kerry, talking loudly along the passages, wringing her hands, and crying, "Aw, dear! oh, mam! oh, goodness me!"

Mastha Dan was no longer in prison, he had been kidnapped; four men and a boy had taken him by main force; bound hand and foot he had been carried through the mountains to a lonely place; and there at daybreak to-morrow he was to be shot. All this and more, with many details of place and circumstance, Kerry had seen as in a flash of light, just as she was raking the ashes on the fire preparatory to going to bed.

Mona had gone through too much to be within touch of the blind woman's excitement.

"We must not give way to these fancies, Kerry," she said.

"Fancies, mam? Fancies you're saying? Scoffers may mock, but don't you, mam – brought up with my own hand, as the saying is."

"I did not mean to mock, Kerry; but we have so many real troubles that it seems wicked to imagine others – and perhaps a little foolish, too."

At that word the sightless face of Kerry grew to a great gravity.

"Foolish, mam? It is the gift – the gift of the good God. He made me blind, but he gave me the sights. It would have been hard, and maybe a taste cruel, to shut me up in the dark, and every living craythur in the light; but he is a just God and a merciful, as the saying is, and he gave me the gift for recompense."

"My good Kerry, I am so tired to-night, and must go to bed."

"Aw, yes, and well it has sarved me time upon time – "

"We were up before six this morning, Kerry."

"And now I say to you, send immadient, mam, or the Lord help – "

The blind woman's excitement and Mona's impassibility were broken in upon by the sound of a man's voice in the hall asking sharply for the Deemster. At the next moment Quayle, the coroner, was in the room. His face was flushed, his breath came quick, and his manner betrayed extreme agitation.

"When the Deemster comes home from Kirk Andreas tell him to go across to Bishop's Court at once, and say that I will be back before midnight."

So saying, the coroner wheeled about without ceremony, and was leaving the room.

"What has happened at Bishop's Court?" Mona asked.

"Nothing," he said, impatiently.

"Then why should I tell him to go there?"

The tone of the question awakened the curmudgeon's sense of common policy.

"Well, if you must know, that man has escaped, and I'm thinking the Bishop himself has had his foot in the mischief."

Then Kerry, with a confused desire to defend the Bishop, interrupted, and said, "The Bishop's not at the Coort – let me tell ye that."

Whereupon the coroner smiled with a large dignity, and answered, "I know it, woman."

"When did this happen?" said Mona.

"Not an hour ago; I am straight from Peeltown this minute."

And without more words the coroner turned his back on her, and was gone in an instant.

When Quayle had left the room Kerry lifted both hands; her blind face wore a curious expression of mingled pride and fear. "It is the gift," she said, in an awesome whisper.

Mona stood a while in silence and perplexity, and then she said, in tremulous voice, "Kerry, don't think me among those that scoff, but tell me over again, my good Kerry, and forgive me."

And Kerry told the story of her vision afresh, and Mona now listened with eager attention, and interrupted with frequent questions.

"Who where the four men and the boy? Never saw their faces before? Never? Not in the street? No? Never heard their voices? Ah, surely you remember their voices? Yes, yes, try to recall them; try, try, my good Kerry. Ah! the fishermen – they were the voices of the fishermen! How were you so long in remembering? Quilleash? Yes, old Billy. And Crennell? Yes, and Teare and Corkell, and the boy Davy Fayle? Poor young Davy, he was one of them? Yes? Oh, you dear, good Kerry!"

Mona's impassibility was gone, and her questions, like her breath, came hot and fast.

"And now tell me what place they took him to. The mountains? Yes, but where? Never saw the place before in all your life? Why, no, of course not; how could you, Kerry? Ah, don't mind what I say and don't be angry. But what kind of place? Quick, Kerry, quick."

Kerry's blind face grew solemn, and one hand, with outstretched finger, she raised before her, as though to trace the scene in the air, as she described the spot in the mountains where the four men and the boy had taken Dan.

"It was a great lone place, mam, with the sea a-both sides of you, and a great large mountain aback of you, and a small low one in front, and a deep strame running under you through the gorse, and another shallow one coming into it at a slant, and all whins and tussocks of the lush grass about, and maybe a willow by the water's side, with the sally-birds hanging dead from the boughs, and never a stick, nor a sign of a house, nor a barn, but the ould tumbled cabin where they took him, and only the sea's roar afar away, and the sheep's bleating, and maybe the mountain geese cackling, and all to that."

Mona had listened at first with vivid eagerness and a face alive with animation, but as Kerry went on the girl's countenance saddened. She fell back a pace or two, and said, in a tone of pain and impatience:

"Oh, Kerry, you have told me nothing. What you say describes nearly every mountain-top in the island. Was there nothing else? Nothing? Think. What about the tumble-down house? Had it a roof? Yes? No one living in it? No buildings about it? A shaft-head and gear? Oh, Kerry, how slow you are! Quick, dear Kerry! An old mine? A worked-out mine? Oh, think, and be sure!"

Then the solemnity of the blind woman's face deepened to a look of inspiration. "Think? No need to think," she said in an altered tone. "Lord bless me, I see it again. There, there it is – there this very minute."

She sunk back into a chair, and suddenly became motionless and stiff. Her sightless eyes were opened, and for the first few moments that followed thereafter all her senses seemed to be lost to the things about her. In this dream-state she continued to talk in a slow, broken, fearsome voice, exclaiming, protesting, and half-sobbing. At first Mona looked on in an agony of suspense, and then she dropped to her knees at Kerry's feet, and flung her arms about the blind woman with the cry of a frightened bird.

"Kerry, Kerry!" she called, as if prompted by an unconscious impulse to recall her from the trance that was awful to look upon. And in that moment of contact with the seer she suffered a shock that penetrated every fibre; she shuddered, the cry of pain died off in her throat, her parted lips whitened and stiffened, her eyes were frozen in their look of terror, her breath ceased to come, her heart to beat, and body and soul together seemed transfixed. In that swift instant of insensibility the vision passed like a throb of blood to her from the blind woman, and she saw and knew all.

Half an hour later, Mona, with every nerve vibrating, with eyes of frenzy and a voice of fear, was at Bishop's Court inquiring for the Bishop.

"He is this minute home from Peel," said the housekeeper.

Mona was taken to the library, and there the Bishop sat before the fire, staring stupidly into the flame. His hat and cloak had not yet been removed, and a riding-whip hung from one of his listless hands.

He rose as Mona entered. She flew to his arms, and while he held her to his breast his sad face softened, and the pent-up anguish of her heart overflowed in tears. Then she told him the tangled, inconsequent tale, the coroner's announcement, Kerry's vision, her own strange dream-state, and all she had seen in it.

As she spoke, the Bishop looked dazed; he pressed one hand on his forehead; he repeated her words after her; he echoed the questions she put to him. Then he lifted his head to betoken silence. "Let me think," he said. But the brief silence brought no clearness to his bewildered brain. He could not think; he could not grasp what had occurred. And the baffled struggle to comprehend made the veins of his forehead stand out large and blue. A most pitiful look of weariness came over his mellow face, and he said in a low tone that was very touching to hear, "To tell you the truth, my dear child, I do not follow you – my mind seems thick and clouded – things run together in it – I am only a feeble old man now, and – But wait" (a flash of light crossed his troubled face) – "you say you recognize the place in the mountains?"

"Yes, as I saw it in the vision. I have been there before. When I was a child I was there with Dan and Ewan. It is far up the Sulby River, under Snaefell, and over Glen Crammag. Don't say it is foolish and womanish, and only hysteria, dear uncle. I saw it all as plainly as I see you now."

"Ah, no, my child. If the Patriarch Joseph practised such divination, is it for me to call it foolishness? But wait, wait – let me think." And then, in a low murmur, as if communing with himself, he went on: "The door was left open … yes, the door … the door was…"

It was useless. His brain was broken, and would not link its ideas. He was struggling to piece together the fact that Dan was no longer in prison with the incidents of his own abandoned preparations for his son's escape. Mumbling and stammering, he looked vacantly into Mona's face, until the truth of his impotence forced itself upon her, and she saw that from him no help for Dan could come.

Then with many tears she left him and hastened back to Ballamona. The house was in confusion; the Deemster and Jarvis Kerruish had returned, and the coroner was with them in the study.

"And what of the Peeltown watch?" the Deemster was asking sharply. "Where was he?"

"Away on some cock-and-bull errand, sir."

"By whose orders?"

"The Bishop's."

"And what of the harbor-master when the 'Ben-my-Chree' was taken away from her moorings?"

"He also was spirited away."

"By whom?"

"The same messenger – Will-as-Thorn, the parish clerk."

"Old Gorry, the sumner, gave up the prison keys to the Bishop, you say?"

"To the Bishop, sir."

"And left him in the cell, and found the door open and the prisoner gone upon his return?"

"Just so, sir."

"What have you been doing in the matter?"

"Been to Ramsey, sir, and stationed three men on the quay to see that nobody leaves the island by the Cumberland packet that sails at midnight."

"Tut, man, who will need the packet? – the man has the fishing-boat."

Mona's impatience could contain itself no longer. She hurried into the study and told her tale. The Deemster listened with a keen, quick sense; he questioned, cross-questioned, and learned all. This done, he laughed a little, coldly and bitterly, and dismissed the whole story with contempt.

"Kidnapped? No such matter. Escaped, woman – escaped! And visions, forsooth! What pedler's French! Get away to bed, girl."

Mona had no choice but to go. Her agitation was painful; her sole thought was of Dan's peril. She was a woman, and that Dan was a doomed man, whether in prison or out of it, whether he had escaped or been kidnapped, was a consideration that had faded from her view. His life was in imminent danger, and that was everything to her. She had tried to save him by help of the Bishop, and failing in that direction, she had attempted the same end by help of the Deemster, his enemy.

The hours passed with feet of lead until three o'clock struck, and then there was a knock at her door. The Deemster's voice summoned her to rise, dress quickly and warmly, and come out immediately. She had not gone to bed, and in two minutes more was standing hooded and cloaked in the hall. The Deemster, Jarvis, the coroner, and seven men were there. At the porch a horse, saddled and bridled, was pawing the gravel.

Mona understood everything at a glance. Clearly enough the Deemster intended to act on the guidance of the vision which he had affected to despise. Evidently it was meant that she should go with the men to identify the place she had described.

"An old lead mine under Snaefell and over Glen Crammag, d'you say?"

"Yes, father."

"Daybreak?"

"It was daybreak."

"You would know the place if you saw it again?"

"Yes."

The Deemster turned to the coroner.

"Which course do you take?"

"Across Glen Dhoo, sir, past Ravensdale, and along the mountain-path to the Sherragh Vane."

"Come, girl, mount; be quick."

Mona was lifted to the saddle, the coroner took the bridle, and they started away, the seven men walking behind.

CHAPTER XXXIII
KIDNAPPED

What had happened was a strange series of coincidences. Early that day the crew of the "Ben-my-Chree," in the mountain solitude where they found freezing and starving safety, had sent one of their number back to Sulby village to buy a quarter of meal. Teare was the man chosen for the errand, and having compassed it, he was stealing his way back to the mountains, when he noticed that great companies of people were coming from the direction of Ramsey. Lagging behind the larger groups on the road was a woman whom he recognized as his wife. He attracted her attention without revealing himself to the people in front. She was returning from the Deemster's inquest, and told what had occurred there: that Dan, the Bishop's son, had surrendered, and that the indictment to the Court of General Jail Delivery had been made out not only in his name, but in the names of the four men and the boy of the "Ben-my-Chree."

Teare carried back to the mountains a heavier burden than the quarter of meal. His mates had watched for him as he plodded up the bank of the Sulby River with the bag on his back. When he came up his face was ominous.

"Send the lad away for a spell," he muttered to old Billy Quilleash, and Davy Fayle was sent to cut gorse for a fire.

Then the men gathered around Teare and heard what had happened. The disaster had fallen which they foresaw. What was to be done? Crennell, with a line from a psalm, was for trusting in the Lord; and old Quilleash, with an oath, was for trusting in his heels. After a pause Teare propounded his scheme. It centred in Dan. Dan with his confession was their sole danger. Once rid of Dan they were as free men. Before his confession of guilt their innocence was beyond his power to prove or their power to establish. On his way up from the valley Teare had hit on a daring adventure. They were to break into the castle at Peel, take Dan by force, bring him up to the mountains, and there give him the choice of life or death: life if he promised to plead Not Guilty to the indictment, death if he adhered to the resolution by which he had surrendered.

The men gathered closer about Teare, and with yet whiter faces. Teare gave his plan; his scheme was complete; that night they were to carry it out. Paton Gorry was the jailer at Peel Castle. The lad Davy was the old sumner's godchild. Davy was to go forth and smuggle Gorry's keys out of the guard-room. If that were found impossible – well, Paton was an old man; he might be put quietly out of harm's way – no violence – och! no, not a ha'p'orth. Then Corkell was son-in-law of the watch at Peeltown, and hence the watch must take the harbor-master to the "Jolly Herrings," in Castle Street, while they themselves, Teare, Quilleash, Crennell, and Corkell, took the "Ben-my-Chree" from her moorings at the mouth of the harbor. On the west coast of St. Patrick's Isle they must bear down and run the dingey ashore. Then Dan must be seized in his cell, bound hand and foot, and brought aboard. With a fair wind – it was blowing east-sou'east – they must set sail for Ramsey Bay, put about at Lague, anchor there, and go ashore.

"That'll lave it," said Teare, "to raisonable inf'rence that Mastha Dan had whipped off to England by the Whitehaven packet that sails at midnight from the quay."

This done, they were to find a horse, strap the fettered man to its back, fetch him into the mountains in the dark hours of the night, and at daybreak try him solemnly and justly on the issue they had hit upon of life or death. No violence! Aw, no, all just and straight! If so be that the man was hanging them, they'd do him justice man to man, as fair as the backbone lies down the middle of a herring. Deemster's justice couldn't be cleaner; no, nor as clean. Aw, yes, no violence!

It was an intricate plan, involving many risks, presupposing many favorable chances. Perhaps it was not a logical computation of probabilities. But, good or bad, logical or illogical, probable or improbable, easy of accomplishment or full of risk and peril, it was the only alternative to trusting in the Lord, as Crennell had suggested, or in their heels, as Quilleash had preferred. In the end they took it, and made ready to act on it.

As the men arrived at their conclusion Davy Fayle was returning with an armful of withered gorse for a fire. The first move in that night's adventure was to be made by him. "Lave the lad to me," whispered Quilleash, and straightway he tackled Davy. Veracity was not conspicuous in the explanation that the old salt made. Poor Mastha Dan had been nabbed, bad cess to it, and jiggered up in Peel Castle. He would be hanged sarten sure. Aw, safe for it, if some chaps didn't make an effort immadient. They meant to do it, too. Ay, that very evenin'! Wouldn't they let him help? Well, pozzible, pozzible. They wasn't no objection to that. Thus, Davy fell an eager victim to a plan that was not propounded to him. If saving Mastha Dan from the dirts that had nabbed him was the skame that was goin', why, nothin' would hould him but he would be in it. "Be aisy with the loblolly-boy and you have him," whispered old Billy behind the back of his hand, as he spat a long jet from his quid.

Relieved of doubt as to their course of action, they built a fire and warmed themselves, and with water from the river below they made cold porridge of the meal, and ate and drank, and waited for the night. The darkness came early – it was closing in at four o'clock. Then the men smothered their fire with turf and earth and set out for Peeltown. Their course was over Colden, and between Greeba and Beary, to the breast of Slieu Whallin, and then down to St. Patrick's Isle by the foot of Corrin's Hill. It was twelve miles over hill and dale, through the darkness and the muggy air of the winter's night. They had to avoid the few houses and to break their pace when footsteps came their way. But they covered the distance in less than four hours. At eight o'clock they were standing together on the south of the bridge that crosses the Neb River at the top of Peel Harbor. There they separated. Corkell went off to the market-place by a crooked alley from the quay to find the watch and dispose of him. When the harbor-master had been removed, Corkell was to go to the "Ben-my-Chree," which was moored in deep water at the end of the wooden pier, open the scuttle on the south, and put the lamp to it as a signal of safety to Quilleash, Teare, and Crennell above the bridge on the headland opposite. They were then to come aboard. Davy Fayle took the south quay to St. Patrick's Isle. It was now the bottom of the ebb-tide, and Davy was to wade the narrow neck that divided the isle from the mainland. Perhaps he might light on a boat; perhaps cross dry-shod. In half an hour he was to be on the west of the castle, just under a spot known as the Giant's Grave, and there the four men were to come ashore to him in the dingey. Meantime he was to see old Paton Gorry and generally take the soundings. Thus they parted.

Davy found the water low and the ford dry. He crossed it as noiselessly as he could, and reached the rocks of the isle. It was not so dark but he could descry the dim outlines of the ruined castle. A flight of steps ascended from the water's edge to the portcullis. Davy crept up. He had prepared to knock at the old notched door under the arch, but he found it standing open. He stood and listened. At one moment he thought he heard a movement behind him. It was darkest of all under these thick walls. He went on; he passed the doorway that is terrible with the tradition of the Moddey Dhoo. As he went by the door he turned his head to it in the darkness, and once again he thought he heard something stir. This time the sound came from before him. He gasped, and had almost screamed. He stretched his arms toward the sound. There was nothing. All was still once more.

Davy stepped forward into the courtyard. His feet fell softly on the grass that grew there. At length he reached the guard-room. Once more he had lifted his hand to knock, and once more he found the door open. He looked into the room. It was empty; a fire burned on the hearth, a form was drawn up in front of it; a pipe lay on a bare deal table. "He has gone down to the cell," Davy told himself, and he made his way to the steps that led to the dungeon. But he stopped again, and his heart seemed to stand still. There could now be no doubt but some one was approaching. There was the faint jingle as of keys. "Paton! Paton!" Davy called, fearfully. There was no answer, but the footsteps came on. "Who is there?" he cried again, in a tremulous whisper. At the next instant a man passed in the darkness, and Davy saw and knew him. It was the Bishop.

Davy dropped to his knees. A moment afterward the Bishop was gone through the outer gate and down the steps. His footsteps ceased, and then there were voices, followed by the plash of an oar, and then all was silence once more, save for the thick boom of the sea that came up from the rocks.

Davy rose to his feet and turned toward the steps that led down to the door of the dungeon. A light came from below. The door was open also, and, stretching himself full-length on to the ground, Davy could see into the cell. On the floor there was a lantern, and beside it a bundle lay. Dan was there; he was lying on the stone couch; he was alone.

Breathless and trembling, Davy rose again and fled out of the old castle and along the rocky causeway to a gullet under the Giant's Grave. There the men were waiting for him.

"The place is bewitched," he said, with quick-coming breath; and he told how every door was open, and not a soul was in the castle except Dan. The men heard him with evident terror. Corkell had just told them a similar story. The watch and the harbor-master had both been removed before he had gone in search of them. Everything seemed to be done to their hands. Nothing was left to them to do but simply to walk into the castle and carry out their design. This terrified them. "It's a fate," Corkell whispered; and Crennell, in white awe of the unseen hand that was helping them, was still for trusting in the Lord. Thus they put their heads together. Quilleash was first to recover from superstitious fears. "Come, lay down, and no blather," he said, and stalked resolutely forward, carrying a sack and a coil of rope. The other men followed him in silence. Davy was ordered to stay behind with the small-boat.

They found everything as the lad had left it: the notched door of the portcullis was open, the door of the guard-room was open, and when they came to the steps of the dungeon the door there was also open. A moment they stood and listened, and heard no sound from below but a light, regular breathing, as of one man only. Then they went quietly down the steps and into the cell. Dan was asleep. At sight of him, lying alone and unconscious, their courage wavered a moment. The unseen hand seemed to be on them still. "I tell thee it's a fate," Corkell whispered again over Quilleash's shoulder. In half a minute the sleeping man was bound hand and foot, and the sack was thrown over his head. At the first touch he awoke and tried to rise, but four men were over his prostrate body, and they overpowered him. He cried lustily, but there was none to hear. In less time than it takes to tell it the men were carrying Dan out of the cell. The lantern they left on the floor, and in their excitement they did not heed the parcel that lay by it.

Over the courtyard, through the gate, along the ledge under the crumbling walls, they stumbled and plunged in the darkness. They reached the boat and pushed off. Ten minutes afterward they were aboard the "Ben-my-Chree" and were beating down the bay.

Dan recognized the voices of the men, and realized his situation. He did not shout again. The sack over his head was of coarse fibre, admitting the air, and he could breathe through it without difficulty. He had been put to lie on one of the bunks in the cabin, and he could see the tossing light of the horn lantern that hung from the deck-planks. When the boat rolled in the strong sea that was running he could sometimes see the lights on the land through the open scuttle.

With a fair wind for the Point of Ayr, full sail was stretched. Corkell stood to the tiller, and, when all went smoothly, the three men turned in below, and lighted a fire in the stove and smoked. Then Davy Fayle came down with eyes dull and sick. He had begun to doubt, and to ask questions that the men could not answer. What for was Mastha Dan tied up like a haythen? And what for the sack? But the men were in no humor for cross-examination. No criss-crossing! The imperent young idiot waistrel, let him keep his breath to cool his porridge. To quiet the lad the men plied him with liquor, and at the second draft he was reeling drunk. Then he laughed a wild laugh, and sang a mad song, and finally stood up to dance. It was a grim sight, but it was soon ended, and Davy was put to sleep in another of the bunks. Then two hours passed, and there was some growling and quarreling.

Crennell and Teare went up on deck. Quilleash remained below, sitting before the stove cleaning with oil and a rag a fowling-piece that Dan had brought aboard at the beginning of the herring season. Sometimes he crooned a Manx carval, and sometimes whistled it, as he worked, chewing his quid meantime, and glancing at intervals at Dan's motionless figure on the bunk:

 
With pain we record
The year of our Lord
Sixteen hundred and sixty and sayven,
When it so come to pass
A good fishing there wass
Off Dooglas, and a wonderful sayson.
 

There was no other sound in the cabin, except Davy's heavy breathing and the monotonous beat of the water at the boat's bow. Dan lay as quiet as the dead. Never once had he spoken or been spoken to.

The boat was flying before the wind. The sky had cleared, and the stars were out, and the lights on the shore could be plainly seen. Orrisdale, Jurby, and the Rue went by, and when Bishop's Court was passed the light in the library window burned clear and strong over the sea. Toward ten o'clock the lighthouse on the Point of Ayr was rounded, and then the boat had to bear down the Ramsey Bay in tacks. Before eleven they were passing the town, and could see the lights of the Cumberland packet as she lay by the quay. It was then three-quarter tide. In half an hour more the lugger was put about at Port Lague, and there Dan was taken ashore by Teare and Crennell. Quilleash went with them, carrying the fowling-peace.

Corkell and Davy Fayle, who had recovered from his stupor, were to take the "Ben-my-Chree" back into Ramsey Bay, to drop anchor under Ballure, and then to rejoin their companions at Lague before twelve o'clock. This was to divert suspicion, and to provoke the inference, when the fishing-boat would be found next morning, that Dan had escaped to England by the Whitehaven packet.

The "Ben-my-Chree" sailed off with Corkell and Davy. Teare went in search of a horse, Quilleash and Crennell remained on the shore at Lague with Dan. It was a bleak and desolate place, with nothing to the south but the grim rocks of the Tableland Head, and with never a house to the north nearer than Folieu, which was half a mile away. The night was now bitterly cold. The stars were gone, the darkness was heavy, and a nipping frost was in the dense atmosphere. But the wind had dropped, and every sound sent a dull echo through the air. The two men waited and listened. Thus far all had gone well with them, but what remained to do was perilous enough. If Corkell and the lad happened to be seen when coming from the boat, if Teare were caught in the act of borrowing a horse without leave, then all would be over with them. Their suspense was keen.

Presently there came up to them from the bay, over the dull rumble of the waves on the shore, a quick creaking sound, followed by a splash and then a dead roll. They knew it was the anchor being slipped to its berth. Soon afterward there came from the land to the south the sharp yap of dogs, followed at a sharp interval by the heavy beat of a horse's hoofs on the road. Was it Teare with the horse? Was he pursued? The men listened, but could hear no other noise. Then there came through the dense air the muffled sound of a bell ringing at the quay. It was the first of three bells that were rung on the Cumberland packet immediately before it set sail.

The horse behind drew nearer, the bell in front rang again. Then Teare came up leading a big draft mare by the bridle. He had been forced to take it from the stable at Lague, and in getting it away he had aroused the dogs; but he had not been followed, and all was safe. The bell rang a third time, and immediately a red light crept out from the quay toward the sea, which lay black as a raven below. The Cumberland packet had gone.

At that moment Corkell and Davy Fayle returned, Corkell holding Davy by the neck of his guernsey. The lad had begun to give signs of a mutinous spirit, which the man had suppressed by force. Davy's eyes flashed, but he was otherwise quiet and calm.