ying about this stone, though,
Halcro?" asked the captain.

I repeated what Grace Drever told me--how the stone might protect
me from accident and from the monsters of the sea; from the kraken
and the kelpie, the warlocks and the wirracows; and how, having the
charm at my neck, I need never fear climbing a cliff or entering
upon the most dangerous adventure.

"And do you believe all this, my lad?" asked Captain Gordon, taking
his pipe from his lips and addressing me.

"Well," I returned, with an earnestness that must have shown that I
had not the smallest doubt upon the matter, "auld Grace Drever said
it was 'as true as death,' and the dominie did not deny that it was
'just possible.' What for should I not believe it? and what for
would the stone be bound with the gold ring and buried with the
other gear if it were not of some value beyond ordinary?"

"Och! but I dinna doot there will be something in the stone," said
my father, who, at the mention of the dominie's belief, cast away
all questioning. "And it will not be the first time I have heard of
such cantrips."

And he told us of a man named Willie Reoch, a fisherman, who was
preserved from the great Bore of Papa Westray in some such way.
Willie Reoch and three other fishers were away at the saith
fishing, and when their boat was driven by the wind near to the
Bore, they were drawn under by the whirling current and swamped.
Reoch had round his neck a charm which Bessie Millie, the witch,
had given to him, and so was the only one saved.

"Na, na," continued my father, "I dinna doot there will be
something wondersome in the stone; and if any person would have
such a thing, who would it be but the Norseman?"

Thus did I become convinced in my mind that, by the possession of
that little gold-encircled stone, I bore a charmed life.

That night I lay with my precious talisman under my pillow. I
thought of the events of the afternoon, and, remembering my fight
with Tom Kinlay, attributed my victory over him to the influence
which that talisman, then in my pocket, had already begun to work.
I tried to imagine what kind of adventures had befallen the old
viking whose bones we had disturbed, and wondered if I should ever
encounter any similar perils. My opportunities of adventure were
fewer than his could have been; but I determined to give my full
trust to the mysterious aid in which Jarl Haffling had trusted in
the ancient days. Then I heard my father unmooring th