der me, and my mouth was so dry I must wet it with the
sea water before I was able to shout.

16. All this time the boat was coming on; and now I was able to
perceive it was the same boat and the same two men as yesterday. This
I knew by their hair, which the one had of bright yellow and the other
black. But now there was a third man along with them, who looked to be
of a better class.

17. As soon as they were come within easy speech, they let down their
sail and lay quiet. In spite of my supplications, they drew no nearer
in, and what frightened me most of all, the new man tee-heed with
laughter as he talked and looked at me.

18. Then he stood up in the boat and addressed me a long while,
speaking fast and with many wavings of his hand. I told him I had no
Gaelic; and at this he became very angry, and I began to suspect he
thought he was talking English. Listening very close, I caught the
word "whateffer" several times; but all the rest was Gaelic, and might
have been Greek and Hebrew for me.

19. "Whatever," said I, to show him I had caught a word. "Yes,
yes--yes, yes," said he; and then he looked at the other men as much
as to say, "I told you I spoke English," and began again as hard as
ever in the Gaelic.

20. This time I picked out another word, "tide." Then I had a flash of
hope. I remembered he was always waving his hand toward the mainland
of the Ross.

21. "Do you mean when the tide is out?"--I cried, and could not
finish.

22. "Yes, yes," said he. "Tide."

23. At that I turned tail upon their boat (where my adviser had once
more begun to tee-hee with laughter), leaped back the way I had come,
from one stone to another, and set off running across the isle as I
had never run before. In about half an hour I came upon the shores of
the creek, and, sure enough, it was shrunk into a little trickle of
water, through which I dashed, not above my knees, and landed with a
shout on the main island.

24. A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on Earraid, which is
only what they call a tidal islet, and, except, in the bottom of the
neaps, can be entered and left twice in every twenty-four hours,
either dry-shod, or, at the most, by wading. Even I, who had seen the
tide going out and in before me in the bay, and even watched for the
ebbs, the better to get my shellfish--even I (I say), if I had sat
down to think, instead of raging at my fate, must have soon guessed
the secret and got free.

25. It was