ything had the aspect of gloom, which was heightened by
the mournful monotone of the sea waves as they dashed against the rock.

After the first feeling of awe had passed, Hubert ran forward, leaping
from rock to rock, till he came to where the beach or floor of the
fissure was gravelly. Over this he walked and hastened to the caverns,
looking into them one after another.

Then he busied himself by searching among the pebbles for curious stones
and shells. He found here numerous specimens of the rarest and finest
treasures of the sea--shells of a delicacy of tint and perfection of
outline; seaweeds of new and exquisite forms with rich hues which he had
hitherto believed impossible.

In the hollows of the rocks, where the water yet lay in pools, he found
little minnows; and delicate jelly fish, with their long slender fibers;
and sea anemones; and sea urchins with their spires extended; and
star-fish moving about with their innumerable creepers. It was a new
world, a world which had thus far been only visible to him in the
aquarium, and now as it stood before him he forgot all else.

He did not feel the wind as it blew in fresh from the sea--the dread
"sou'wester," the terror of fishermen. He did not notice the waves that
rolled in more furiously from without, and were now beginning to break
in wrath upon the rocky ledges and boulders. He did not see that the
water had crept on nearer to the cliff, and that a white line of foam
now lay on that narrow belt of beach which he had traversed at the foot
of the cliff.

Suddenly a sound burst upon his ears that roused him, and sent all the
blood back to his heart. It was his own name, called out in a voice of
anguish and almost of despair by his father.

He sprang to his feet, started forward and rushed with the speed of the
wind to the place by which he had entered the enclosure. But a barrier
lay before him. The rolling waves were there, rushing in over the rocks,
dashing against the cliff, tossing their white and quivering spray
exulting in the air.

At once Hubert knew his danger.

He was caught in the "Smuggler's Trap," and the full meaning of his
uncle's warning flashed upon his mind as in his terror he shrieked back
to his father.

Then there was silence for a time

While Hubert had been in the "Trap," his father and uncle had been
walking along the beach, and the former heard for the first time the
nature and danger of the "Smuggler's Trap." He was at once f