ped so sharply that
the sands were not more than twenty feet from the stern of the Rosabel.

It was now quite dark, but the scene was frequently lighted up by the
sharp lightning. The tide had risen so that the water was within a rod
of the cliffs. Taking an oar in his hand, he planted the blade end of it
in the water as far as he could reach from the stern, and grasping the
other end, he made a flying leap with its aid, and struck at a spot
where the water was only knee-deep. He had scarcely reached the beach
before the squall came; but it blew out of the north-west, so that the
Rosabel was partially sheltered from its fury by the projecting cliffs
between High Rock and the mouth of the river. She swung around, abreast
of the cliffs, into the deep water between the beach and the ledges.
Leopold watched her for a few moments, fearful that the change of
position might have unhooked the anchor; but it held on till the squall,
which expended its force in a few moments, was over. Then the rain came
down in torrents, drenching the boatman to the skin.

Leopold, with the oar in his hand, walked along the narrow beach,
watching the play of the lightning on the rocks of the cliff.
Occasionally he halted to observe the shapes they assumed, and he could
not help perceiving that the glare of the electric fluid gave them an
entirely different appearance from that which they usually wore. He had
landed near the ravine by which Harvey Earth had escaped from the angry
billows, and he walked to the farther end of the beach without seeing
any rock which bore the least resemblance to a coffin. The tide was
rising all the time, driving him nearer and nearer to the cliff. Leopold
was not much excited, for his former failure to find the hidden treasure
had almost convinced him that no such thing existed. He was cool
enough--drenched to the skin as he was--to reason about the movements
of the shipwrecked party on the beach.

"When Harvey Barth left Wallbridge filling up the hole in which he had
put the bag of gold," thought Leopold, "he must have walked towards the
'Hole in the Wall'"--as the ravine was called by those who visited High
Rock. "If he hadn't walked towards it, he wouldn't have found it. If he
had walked up and down the beach, he would have seen Wallbridge and the
mate when they went off in the whale-boat to return to the wreck. This
shows plainly enough that he only walked one way before he came to the
Hole. That way must hav