if he would.

It was strange to see the four gray-haired sisters as they sat in a row
against the wall and told him in chiming sentences these tales with full
belief.

"And what sort of a disease is it?" asked Caius, curious to hear more.

"It's the sore throat and the choke, sir," said the eldest sister, "and
a very bad disease it is, for if it doesn't stop at the throat, it flies
direct to the stomach, sir, and then you can't breathe."

Caius pondered this description for a few moments, and then he formed a
question which was to the point.

"And where," said he, "is the stomach?"

At which she tapped her chest, and told him it was there.

He had eaten somewhat greedily, and when he found that the linen of his
bed was snow-white and the bed itself of the softest feathers, he lay
down with great contentment. Not even the jar and rush of the wind as it
constantly assaulted the house, nor the bright moonlight against the
curtainless window, kept him awake for a moment. He slept a dreamless
sleep.

CHAPTER III.

BETWEEN THE SURF AND THE SAND.

Next day the wind had grown stronger; the same clear skies prevailed,
with the keen western gale, for the west wind in these quarters is
seldom humid, and at that season it was frosty and very dry, coming as
it did over the already snow-covered plains of Gaspe and Quebec. It
seemed strange to Caius to look out at the glorious sunshine and be told
that not a boat would stir abroad that day, and that it would be
impossible for even a cart to drive to the Cloud Island.

He knew so little of the place to which he had come that when the
spinsters spoke of driving to another island it seemed to him that they
spoke as wildly as when they told of the pranks of the Evil One. He
learned soon that these islands were connected by long sand ridges, and
that when the tide was down it was possible to drive upon the damp beach
from one to another; but this was not possible, they told him, in a
western gale, for the wind beat up the tide so that one could not tell
how far it would descend or how soon it would return. There was risk of
being caught by the waves under the hills of the dune, which a horse
could not climb, and, they added, he had already been told who it was
who lived in the sand hollows.

In the face of the sunny morning, Caius could not forbear expressing his
incredulity of the diabolical legend, and his hostesses did not take the
trouble to argue the point, for