he pointed, and perceived, in the indistinctness of twilight, a little human figure, apparently a female, seated upon the shaft of the fallen cross, then about fifty yards below them. The stories they had heard of the popular superstitions of Scotland instantly crossed their minds; but whatever influence these might have had upon their attendant, whose native soil is sufficiently prolific in such belief to have given him an early tincture of it, the gentlemen laughed at such weaknesses.

"Holloa you there!" shouted Cleaver, "can you guide us to any hostel, where we may be victualled and moored for the night? You shall be well paid for your pilotage."

The creature was sitting as if occupied in raising water from the spring. It started up at the sound, stretched its tiny arms abroad, as if in alarm, and running with the rapidity of thought three times round the circle of the well, suddenly disappeared.

Amherst, roused by curiosity from the momentary surprise this singular apparition had thrown him into, rushed impetuously down the hollow to discover where it had concealed itself..

He carefully examined every nook-he looked into every crevice where a human being might have been secreted, all the way from the spring down to the very bottom of the ravine, where it opened upon the strand, but he could not perceive the least vestige of the object of his search. Surprised and disappointed, he stood for some minutes wrapt in silent astonishment, until he was joined by Cleaver, whose obesity of person, ill calculated for such rapid movements, had permitted him to follow but slowly.

"Why, Amherst, my boy," cried the captain, puffing and blowing as he spoke, "why, Amherst, you must surely have the legs of a goat, or a roebuck, to enable you to bound over slippery stones and rugged rocks in this sort of way. I, for my part, who did not run quite so fast, shook my carcase to pieces, and had two or three times nearly broken my legs in my attempt to overtake you. But who the devil was that person we saw ?"

"The devil, indeed!" cried O'Gollochar, with a face as pale as death.

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Strange!" said Amherst, after recovering

himself, "

very strange indeed! where can she have hid herself?"

"She certainly did not pass out this way,' said Cleaver; "for before I started to follow you in this same break-neck, mad-cap chace, I kept my eye so fixed upon the bottom of the ravine here, that I must have seen a rat or a weasel, if it had escaped in this direction."

"She could not have scaled these walls of rock," said Amherst.

"Not unless she can walk like a fly with her head down,” replied Cleaver.

66 "By the hill of Howth, she's a fairy or a witch," cried O'Gollochar; " I'll take my oath, I saw her vanish in a flash of fire."

"Nay, Cornelius," said his master, “ your eyes have added to the mysterious circumstances of this extraordinary personage, who is certainly mysterious enough in herself, without any such flaming addition. But if we may judge of her by the seat she had chosen, she could not very well be a slave of the Devil, whose servants are supposed to flee at the very sign of the cross."

Och, don't talk about that ould jontleman, dear master," cried O'Gollochar, crossing himself

in good earnest; "sure it was my crossing myself afore, when I first seen the cratur, that got us rid of her so aisily; and now, if I might make so bould, I would advise you and the captain to get all three of us on board again, as fast as our trotters can carry us, for fear she might maybe come back again.”

After puzzling themselves with unavailing conjectures, the gentlemen returned slowly to their boat. On questioning the sailors left in charge of it, who had observed nothing, they were satisfied of the impossibility of the figure having escaped along the beach from the bottom of the ravine, the boat having been moored opposite to the very entrance of it. Their curiosity was sufficiently awakened, and they would have willingly renewed their search, but it was now so dark, that even the adjacent precipices began to be invisible, and all attempts to unravel the mystery were vain.

They were about to get into the boat, when their eyes were attracted by the sudden twinkle of a light on the shore, as if in the bend of the bay, about five or six hundred yards off. At first it seemed to glimmer like a candle or torch,

appearing and disappearing alternately. But suddenly it flamed up with a broad blaze to a great height, illuminating the ample mouth of a large cavern in the cliff, and throwing a red glare on its interior, whilst all around was rendered doubly obscure by its very splendour. The gleam shot across the water, and the tide, as it broke gently on the shore, flashed and sparkled under the influence of its reflection. Several figures were seen, like black shadows, occasionally crossing the light, and apparently employed in feeding the fire. A fervid imagination might have fancied them the dæmons who guard the damned spirits flitting across the threshold of the infernal regions.

"Yonder at least are some human beings," said Amherst; " let us approach, and learn from them whether there is any house in the vicinity. I confess I have no fancy to be rocked for another night by the waves, if I can possibly procure a bed for love or money on terra firma."

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Why, Master Amherst," said Cleaver, "I fear you are still a land-lubber for all I have done to tar you. So you ha'n't got your sea legs yet, man? If you had been as long tossed