treasure ship; but, whatever they may be, dangerous at least to your

daughter and my cousin. As for your own guilty terrors, man, the dead

sleeps well where you have laid him. I stood this morning by his grave;

he will not wake before the trump of doom.'

My kinsman looked upon me, blinking, while I spoke; then he fixed his

eyes for a little on the ground, and pulled his fingers foolishly; but it

was plain that he was past the power of speech.

'Come,' said I. 'You must think for others. You must come up the hill

with me, and see this ship.'

He obeyed without a word or a look, following slowly after my impatient

strides. The spring seemed to have gone out of his body, and he

scrambled heavily up and down the rocks, instead of leaping, as he was

wont, from one to another. Nor could I, for all my cries, induce him to

make better haste. Only once he replied to me complainingly, and like

one in bodily pain: 'Ay, ay, man, I'm coming.' Long before we had

reached the top, I had no other thought for him but pity. If the crime

had been monstrous the punishment was in proportion.

At last we emerged above the sky-line of the hill, and could see around

us. All was black and stormy to the eye; the last gleam of sun had

vanished; a wind had sprung up, not yet high, but gusty and unsteady to

the point; the rain, on the other hand, had ceased. Short as was the

interval, the sea already ran vastly higher than when I had stood there

last; already it had begun to break over some of the outward reefs, and

already it moaned aloud in the sea-caves of Aros. I looked, at first, in

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