p below the water and had to be sacrificed. But I did
not take long to recover my clothes and dress myself, and then I
took to the oars with a will and rowed along the shore in search of
Robbie.

Steep and frowning looked the great cliff that I had come down. I
regarded it with a new interest, and felt some sense of pride and
satisfaction in my narrow escape from so serious a danger. Again I
took my viking's stone in my fingers, and my faith in it was
complete.

Robbie was patiently waiting for me seated on one of the outer
rocks in a further bay. His face brightened as he saw me rounding
the point.

"Man, Ericson," he exclaimed joyfully, "I'm real glad to see ye
again! I e'en thought ye'd met wi' some mischance. I was terribly
feared!"

"Feared, were you? Well, so was I; but I managed all right, you
see, thanks to the viking's charm."

Robbie brought on board the gun, with his rabbit and the dead
gannet. And then we rowed back to Stromness. It was long past
sundown when we rounded the Ness point, and the beacon lights were
streaming over the bay, but we reached the little quay at the end
of the Anchor Close without any mishap. Both of us were very hungry
after our sport.

On that evening, I remember, I spent a very happy time at the home
fireside. My uncle Mansie was there, with my father, and my mother,
and Jessie. It was almost the first occasion on which I was
permitted to join in the conversation with my elders. But the
evening has ever since had a pathetic interest in my memory; for,
as it turned out, it was the very last time that our family sat
together in an unbroken circle.

"Ye're gettin' to be quite a good boatman, Hal, to gang all that
way under sail," said Mansie; and then he turned to my father,
saying, "When are we to hae the lad aboard the Curlew, Sandy?"

"Weel," replied my father, putting his great brown hand with
affection upon my shoulder, "I hae been thinkin' it was about time
he joined us. The lad has been at the school lang enough, mebbe.

"Are ye at the head o' the class yet, Halcro?"

"Nay, father, he's no that yet," interposed Jessie, "for Thora is
aye before him."

"Thora can read better than I can," I said, "and she kens mair
geography. She's better at the Latin, too; but the dominie says I'm
the best at history, and writin', and accounts."

"Ye'll no need very muckle Latin to be a pilot, however," said my
father. "But it's a pity ye're not better at the geography. How
man