good hiding-place. I've hid before now in that
same way, when taking a moonlight bath on the coast of owld Galway. I
did it to scare my schoolfellows, by making believe I was drowned. What
say ye to our trying it?"

His companions made no reply. They had scarce even waited for the
wind-up of his harangue. Both had equally perceived the feasibility of
the scheme; and yielding to a like impulse, all three started into a
fresh run, with their faces turned towards the sea.

In less than a score of seconds, they had crossed the strip of strand;
and in a similarly short space of time were plunging, thigh deep,
through the water; still striding impetuously onward as if the intended
to wade across the Atlantic.

A few more strides, however, brought them to a stand, just inside the
line of breakers, where the seething waters, settling down into a state
of comparative tranquillity, presented a surface variegated with large
clouts of floating froth.

Amidst this mottling of white and black, even under the bright
moonlight, it would have been difficult for the keenest eye to have
detected the head of a human being, supposing the body to have been kept
carefully submerged; and under this confidence the mids were not slow in
submerging themselves.

Ducking down, till their chins touched the water, all three were soon as
completely out of sight, to any eye looking from the shore, as if
Neptune, pitying their forlorn condition, had stretched forth his
trident with a bunch of seaweed upon its prongs, to screen and protect
them.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE PURSUERS NONPLUSSED.

Not one second too soon had they succeeded in making good their entry
into this subaqueous asylum. Scarce had their chins come in contact
with the water, when the voices of men, accompanied by the baying of
dogs, the snorting of maherries, and the neighing of horses, were heard
with the gorge from which they had just issued; and in a few minutes
after, a straggling crowd, composed of these various creatures, came
rushing out of the ravine. Of men, afoot and on horseback, twenty or
more were seen pouring forth; all, apparently, in hot haste, as if eager
to be in at the death of some object pursued, that could not possibly
escape capture.

Once outside the jaws of the gully, the irregular cavalcade advanced
scattering by over the plain. Only for a short distance, however; for,
as if by a common understanding, rather than in obedience to any
c