t but stand amazed at the wonderful delicacy and
finish displayed in the tiny powerful suckers with which each limb was
furnished on the under side, and the flexible muscularity of the
monstrous limbs themselves, thick as his biceps where they came out of
the pool, and tapering to a worm-like point, capable, it seemed to him,
of picking up a pin.

He was mightily glad the beast was dead, however. It had been a blot on
Nature's handiwork, and the very thought of it a horror.

The strenuous interlude of the storm, which, to the lonely one exposed
to its fullest fury, had seemed interminable--every shivering day the
length of many, and the black howling nights longer still--had had the
effect of relaxing somewhat his own oversight over himself and his
precautions against being seen.

L'Etat in a furious sou'-wester is a sight worth seeing. Possibly some
telescope had been brought to bear on the foam-swept rock when he,
secure in the general bouleversement and cramped with hunger, had turned
the forbidden corner with no thought in his mind but eggs.

Possibly again, it was sheer carelessness on his part, born once more of
the security of the storm and the recent non-necessity for concealment.

However it came about, what happened was that, as he stood in the valley
of rocks examining his dead monster, he became suddenly aware that a
fishing-boat had crept round the open end of the valley, and that it
seemed to him much closer in than he had ever seen one before.

He dropped prone among the boulders at once, but whether he had been
seen he could not tell--could only vituperate his own carelessness, and
hope that nothing worse might come of it.

He lay there a very long time, and when at last he ventured to crawl to
the rocks at the seaward opening, the boat was away on the usual
fishing-grounds busy with its own concerns, and he persuaded himself
that its somewhat unusual course had been accidental. The incident,
however, braced him to his former caution, and he went no more abroad
without first carefully inspecting the surrounding waters from the
ridge.

They would be certain to come that night, he felt sure, either Nance or
Bernel, perhaps both. Yes, he thought most likely they would both come.
They would, without doubt, be wondering how he had fared during the
storm, and would be making provision for him.

Perhaps Nance was cooking for him at that very moment, and thinking of
him as he was of her.

In the cert