ans of keeping her in sight was to climb the cliff, from which the
whole bay on the other side would be visible.

Like a man running a race for life, he leaped back to a place where it
was possible to climb, and, once on the top, made his way by main force
through a growth of low bushes until he could overlook the bay. But, lo!
when he came there no creature was visible in the sunny sea beneath or
on the shelving red bank which lay all plain to his view. Far and wide
he scanned the ocean, and long he stood and watched. He walked,
searching for anyone upon the bank, till he came to Day's barns, and by
that time he was convinced that the sea-maid had either vanished into
thin air or sunk down and remained beneath the surface of the sea.

The farm to which he had come was certainly the last place in which he
would have thought to look for news of the sportive sea-creature; and
yet, because it stood alone there in that part of the earth, he tarried
now to put some question to the owner, just as we look mechanically for
a lost object in drawers or cupboards in which we feel sure it cannot
be. Caius found Day in a small paddock behind one of the barns, tending
a mare and her baby foal. Day had of late turned his attention to
horses, and the farm had a bleaker look in consequence, because many of
its acres were left untilled.

Caius leaned his elbows on the fence of the paddock. "Hullo!"

Day turned round, asking without words what he wanted, in a very surly
way.

At the distance at which he stood, and without receiving any
encouragement, Caius found a difficulty in forming his question.

"You haven't seen anything odd in the sea about here, have you?"

"What sort of a thing?"

"I thought I saw a queer thing swimming in the water--did you?"

"No, I didn't."

It was evident that no spark of interest had been roused in the farmer
by the question. From that, more than anything else, Caius judged that
his words were true; but, because he was anxious to make assurance
doubly sure, he blundered into another form of the same inquiry:

"There isn't a young girl about this place, is there?"

Day's face grew indescribably dark. In an instant Caius remembered that,
if the man had any feeling about him, the question was the sorest he
could have asked--the child, who would now have been a girl, drowned,
her sister and brother exiled, and Day bound over by legal authority to
see to it that no defenceless person came in the way