e,
as William had no voice, and knew no hymns, while I had no means of
access to a perambulating harmonium.

"I'll tell you what it is, sir," said Bludger; "I have a notion."

"Name it, William," I replied, my heart and manner softened by community
in suffering and terror.

"Well, if I were you, sir, I would not go home to-night at all; I'd stop
where you are. The beggars won't find you, let them hunt as they like;
they daren't come near this place, bless you, it's an 'Arnt;" by which he
meant that it was haunted.

"Well," said I, "but how should we be any better off to-morrow morning?"

"That's just it, sir," said Bludger. "We'll be up with the first stroke
of dawn, nip down to the harbour, get on board a boat, and be off before
any of them are stirring."

"But, even if we manage to secure a boat," I said, "what about
provisions, and where are we to sail for?"

"Oh, never mind that," said Bill; "we can't be worse off than we are, and
I'll slip out to-night, and lay in some prog in the town. Also some
grog, if I can lay my hands on it," he added, with an unholy smile.

"No, William," I murmured; "no grog; our lives depend on our sobriety."

"Always a-preaching, the old tub-thumper," I heard William say to
himself; but he made no further reference to the subject.

It was now quite dark, and we lay whispering, in the damp hollow under
the great stone. Our plan was to crawl away at the first blush of dawn,
when men generally sleep most soundly; that William should enter one of
the unguarded houses (for these people never stole, and did not know the
meaning of the word "thief"), that he should help himself to provisions,
and that meanwhile I should have a boat ready to start in the harbour.

This larcenous but inevitable programme we carried out, after waiting
through dreadful hours of cold and shivering anxiety. Every cry of a
night bird from the marsh or the wood sent my heart into my mouth. I
felt inconceivably mean and remorseful, my vanity having received a
dreadful shock from the discovery that, far from being a god, I was to be
a kind of burnt-offering.

At last the east grew faintly grey, and we started, not keeping together,
but Bludger marching cautiously in my rear, at a considerable distance.
We only met one person, a dissipated young man, who, I greatly fear, had
been paying his court to a shepherdess in the hills. When he shouted a
challenge, I replied, Erastes eimi, which means, I am sorry