d just such a spot; a rocky
ledge, well grassed, close under the topmost cornice of the cliff, and
quite easy of access. To be sure, a rock on their right cut off their
view of the cove's inmost recess, where the funnel-shaped slope broke
sheer over the mouth of the Hole. But the ledge looked full upon the
Mermaid's Rock and the heave of black water surging past it to
gurgitate between the narrowing walls of rock.

Even the matter-of-fact Linnet could not repress a shiver as, after
panting a while, she raised herself on one elbow and looked down into
the awesome pit. For not only was the water black, but the whole
shadowed base of the cliff wall; black as though stained by the inky
wave. Black, too, showed the hither side of the Mermaid's Rock against
a gray sea, from which the last tint of sunset had faded. Now and then,
between the sobbing of Piper's Hole, the children caught the murmur of
the tide race, half-a-mile off shore, slackening its note as it neared
the time of high-water and its turning point. Out there the sea was
agitated; within the line of the race, sharply defined on the gray, it
heaved and sank on an oily swell.

"My!" said Matthew Henry, gazing; and Annet turned on her sister and
said, "There, now!" The words may seem inadequate, but Linnet
understood them, and that they conveyed a question which she felt to be
a poser. How could she doubt the existence of mermaids in such a spot
as this? If a mermaid were to swim up to the surface under their very
eyes, would she be more wonderful than the actual scene--the black
rocks, the sobbing water?

"Folks," said Annet, incisively, "that laugh at stories about Piper's
Hole, ought to come and see the place for themselves."

"Yes," Matthew Henry agreed; "and after that they can begin to talk."

"I didn't laugh," protested Linnet, flung upon her defence. "Besides,"
she went on weakly, "I don't see why it must be mermaids. If anything
lives down there, why shouldn't it be a dragon---or a giant,
perhaps----"

"Linnet's improving," put in Matthew Henry, with fine sarcasm.

"Well, it sounds to me more like the noise a dragon would make," Linnet
persisted, finding as she went on that her argument was carrying her
through very creditably; "or a giant snoring, as they always do after
meals."

Annet scanned the black water pensively. "I've heard tell," she said,
"of great cuttles that sit and squat under the water; and sometimes,
when they are hungry, they fli