d he was a sort of Flying Dutchman."

"I should hate to think that he wasn't real, Elizabeth. He is as alive
as a--burning coal."

Olaf came back with the pictures of his ship, a clean-cut, beautiful
craft, very up-to-date, except for the dragon-heads at prow and stem.

"If I could have had my way," he told us, "I should have built it like
the ship on the tapestry in there--but it wasn't practical--we haven't
manpower for the oars in these days."

He had other pictures--of a strange house, or, rather, of a collection
of buildings set in the form of a quadrangle, and inclosed by low walls.
There were great gateways of carved wood with ironwork and views of the
interior--a wide hall with fireplaces--a raised platform, with carved
seats that gave a throne-like effect. The house stood on a sort of high
peninsula with a forest back of it, and the sea spreading out beyond.

"The house looks old," Olaf said, "but I planned it."

He had, he explained, during one of his voyages, come upon a hidden
harbor. "There is only a fishing village and a few small boats at the
landing place, but the people claim to be descendants of the vikings.
They are utterly isolated, but a God-fearing, hardy folk.

"It is strangely cut off from the rest of the world. I call it 'The
Hidden Land.' It is not on any map. I have looked and have not found
it."

"But why," was Nancy's demand, "did you build there?"

It was a question, I think, for which he had waited. "Some day I may
tell you, but not now, except this--that I love the sea, and I shall end
my days where, when I open my gates, my eyes may rest upon it ... where
its storms may beat upon my roof, and where the men about me shall sail
it, and get their living from it.

"I have told your cousin," he went on, "something of the life of my
grandfather and of my father. With all of their sea-blood, they were
shut away for two generations from the sea. Can you grasp the meaning of
that to me?--the heritage of suppressed longings? I think my father must
have felt it as I did, for he drank heavily before he died. My
grandfather sought an outlet in founding the family fortunes. But when I
came, there was not the compelling force of poverty to make me work, and
I had before me the warning of my father's excesses. But this
sea-madness! It has driven me on and on, and at last it has driven me
here." He stopped, then took up the theme again in his tense, excited
fashion, "It will drive me on again.