e been the opposite direction from that I have
just come; for if he had walked the way I have, he could not have
reached the Hole; and there is no beach to walk on beyond it.

"When Harvey Barth looked behind him, he could not see the coffin; and
of course I couldn't see it when I came this way. I suppose it only
shows itself, like the man's head near the light-house, from one
particular point. The head can only be made out from a boat, when it
ranges between the island and the light, one way, and in line with the
dead tree and Jones's barn on the north shore, the other way. Twenty
feet from this position, nothing that looks like a head can be seen.
Probably this coffin works by the same rule. If it don't, it is strange
that I have never noticed it. Now I will walk in the direction that
Harvey Barth did, and if there is any coffin here I shall see it."

The bright flashes of lightning still illuminated the cliffs, as Leopold
walked slowly towards the Hole in the Wall, scrutinizing the rocks with
the utmost care. By the rising of the tide his line of march was now
within ten feet of the cliff, and the beach was of about the same width
as when the shipwrecked party had sought a refuge upon it; but the sea
was comparatively calm, and there was no peril on its smooth sands.
Leopold had gone about one third of the length of the beach, when his
eye rested upon a formation in the cliff, which, as the lightning played
upon it, assured him he had found what he sought. The view he had
obtained of it was only for an instant. He halted, waiting again till
the lightning again, enabled him to see the rock.

"That's it, as sure as I live!" exclaimed the boatman.

Again and again he saw it, as the lightning glared upon it; and the
resemblance to a coffin was certainly very striking. Harvey Barth was
justified again, and Leopold acknowledged to himself the correctness of
the description in the diary. Thrusting the oar down into the sand on
the spot where he was, so as not to loose the locality, he stood for
some time observing the phenomenon on the rocks. He understood now why
he had not seen it before. In his previous search, he had walked on the
beach twenty feet farther out from the cliff. Changing his position by
wading into the water, the shape of the coffin on the rock was lost
before he had moved ten feet from the oar. From this point it assumed a
new form, looking like nothing in particular but a mass of rock.

Leopold retur