old couple who hung about the place, and who
had learned to see nothing and to hear nothing, came to him and
voluntarily offered a remark.

"Queer folk an' strange folk have been here, an' ta'en awa some claes
out o' the cellar."

Ragon asked no questions. He knew what clothes they were--that suit of
John Sabay's in which Sandy Beg had killed Peter Fae, and the rags
which Sandy had a few hours before exchanged for one of his own
sailing-suits. He needed no one to tell him what had happened. Sandy
had undoubtedly bespoke the very vessel containing the officers in
search of him, and had confessed all, as he said he would. The men
were probably at this moment looking for him.

He lifted the gold prepared for any such emergency, and, loosening his
boat, pulled for life and death towards Mayness Isle. Once in the
rapid "race" that divides it and Olla from the ocean, he knew no boat
would dare to follow him. While yet a mile from it he saw that he was
rapidly pursued by a four-oared boat. Now all his wild Norse nature
asserted itself. He forgot everything but that he was eluding his
pursuers, and as the chase grew hotter, closer, more exciting, his
enthusiasm carried him far beyond all prudence.

He began to shout or chant to his wild efforts some old Norse
death-song, and just as they gained on him he shot into the "race" and
defied them. Oars were useless there, and they watched him fling them
far away and stand up with outstretched arms in the little skiff. The
waves tossed it hither and thither, the boiling, racing flood hurried
it with terrific force towards the ocean. The tall, massive figure
swayed like a reed in a tempest, and suddenly the half despairing,
half defying song was lost in the roar of the bleak, green surges. All
knew then what had happened.

"Let me die the death o' the righteous," murmured one old man, piously
veiling his eyes with his bonnet; and then the boat turned and went
silently back to Stromness.

Sandy Beg was in Kirkwall jail. He had made a clean breast of all his
crimes, and measures were rapidly taken for John Sabay's enlargement
and justification. When he came out of prison Christine and Margaret
were waiting for him, and it was to Margaret's comfortable home he was
taken to see his mother. "For we are ane household now, John," she
said tenderly, "an' Christine an' mother will ne'er leave me any
mair."

Sandy's trial came on at the summer term. He was convicted on his own
confess