ame a sudden and fearful noise, which
roused us out of our stupor and filled the place with our shrieks.

For a moment we could not say what had happened. Then I understood
that, in the tension of looking for the ghost I could not see, my foot
had stretched against the butt of one of the guns and upset a stack of
some six of them on to the stone floor, thereby putting an end to all
things, the ghost included; for when we recovered from this last fright,
and Tim in desperation struck a light, the place was as silent and empty
as it was when we entered it.

If it was all an illusion, it was a strange one--strange indeed for a
single witness to hear, stranger still for two. Yet illusion it must
have been, begotten of my terrors, and the creak of the stairs, and the
sighing of the wind, or the excursions of a vagabond rat. I do not
pretend to explain it. Nor, for months after, could I be persuaded that
the visitor was aught other than the poor distracted lady of Kilgorman.
And it was months after that before I could get out of my mind that she
had stood beside us and sought for something in the hearth.

As for us that night, I can promise you we were not many minutes longer
in Kilgorman when the spell was once broken. Even Tim forgot the guns.
With all the speed we could we ran to the stairs and so to my lady's
chamber, against which stood the friendly ladder, down which we slid,
and not waiting even to restore it to its place, sped like hunted hares
down the avenue and along the steep path, till we came to the harbour in
the creek where lay our boat.

Nor was it till we were safely afloat, with sail hoisted and our bows
pointing to Fanad, that we drew breath, and dared look back in the dim
dawn at the grim walls and chimneys of Kilgorman as they loomed out upon
us from among the trees and rocks.

CHAPTER FIVE.

FAREWELL TO FANAD.

After that, life went uneventfully for a time with Tim and me. Now that
the cabin was empty father visited us seldom. His voyages took him
longer than before, and we had a shrewd guess that they were not all in
search of fish; for little enough of that he brought home. Young as we
boys were we knew better than to ask him questions. Only when he showed
us his pocket full of French coin, or carried up by night a keg of
spirits that had never been brewed in a lawful distillery, or piloted
some foreign-looking craft after dark into one of the quiet creeks along
the coast, or spen