ed toward the quarter from which the first
mimicry of his cry for help had come. After a moment's pause the shrieks
were renewed, and the sound of them came nearer. Suddenly a figure,
which seemed the figure of a man, leaped up black on a pinnacle of
rock, and capered and shrieked in the waning gleam of the moonlight.
The screams of a terrified woman mingled with the cries of the capering
creature on the rock. A red spark flashed out in the darkness from a
light kindled in an invisible window. The hoarse shouting of a man's
voice in anger was heard through the noise. A second black figure leaped
up on the rock, struggled with the first figure, and disappeared with it
in the darkness. The cries grew fainter and fainter, the screams of the
woman were stilled, the hoarse voice of the man was heard again for a
moment, hailing the wreck in words made unintelligible by the distance,
but in tones plainly expressive of rage and fear combined. Another
moment, and the clang of the door-bolt was heard again, the red spark
of light was quenched in darkness, and all the islet lay quiet in the
shadows once more. The lowing of the cattle on the main-land ceased,
rose again, stopped. Then, cold and cheerless as ever, the eternal
bubbling of the broken water welled up through the great gap of
silence--the one sound left, as the mysterious stillness of the hour
fell like a mantle from the heavens, and closed over the wreck.

Allan descended from his place in the mizzen-top, and joined his friend
again on deck.

"We must wait till the ship-breakers come off to their work," he said,
meeting Midwinter halfway in the course of his restless walk. "After
what has happened, I don't mind confessing that I've had enough of
hailing the land. Only think of there being a madman in that house
ashore, and of my waking him! Horrible, wasn't it?"

Midwinter stood still for a moment, and looked at Allan, with the
perplexed air of a man who hears circumstances familiarly mentioned to
which he is himself a total stranger. He appeared, if such a thing had
been possible, to have passed over entirely without notice all that had
just happened on the Islet of the Calf.

"Nothing is horrible _out_ of this ship," he said. "Everything is
horrible _in_ it."

Answering in those strange words, he turned away again, and went on with
his walk.

Allan picked up the flask of whisky lying on the deck near him, and
revived his spirits with a dram. "Here's one thing