as for the best.

My Uncle Gordon saw in what direction, horrible to him, the chase was
driving him. He doubled, darting to the right and left; but high as the
fever ran in his veins, the black was still the swifter. Turn where he
would, he was still forestalled, still driven toward the scene of his
crime. Suddenly he began to shriek aloud, so that the coast re-echoed;
and now both I and Rorie were calling on the black to stop. But all was
vain, for it was written otherwise. The pursuer still ran, the chase
still sped before him screaming; they avoided the grave, and skimmed
close past the timbers of the wreck; in a breath they had cleared the
sand; and still my kinsman did not pause, but dashed straight into the
surf; and the black, now almost within reach, still followed swiftly
behind him. Rorie and I both stopped, for the thing was now beyond the
hands of men, and these were the decrees of God that came to pass before
our eyes. There was never a sharper ending. On that steep beach they
were beyond their depth at a bound; neither could swim; the black rose
once for a moment with a throttling cry; but the current had them,
racing seaward; and if ever they came up again, which God alone can
tell, it would be ten minutes after, at the far end of Aros Roost, where
the sea-birds hover fishing.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _i.e._ the six stories which were in 1887 published in a volume
entitled _The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables_: of this volume
"The Merry Men" and "Olalla" formed part.

[2] Boggy.

[3] Clock.

[4] Enjoy.

OLALLA

OLALLA

"Now," said the doctor, "my part is done, and, I may say, with some
vanity, well done. It remains only to get you out of this cold and
poisonous city, and to give you two months of a pure air and an easy
conscience. The last is your affair. To the first I think I can help
you. It falls indeed rather oddly; it was but the other day the Padre
came in from the country; and as he and I are old friends, although of
contrary professions, he applied to me in a matter of distress among
some of his parishioners. This was a family--but you are ignorant of
Spain, and even the names of our grandees are hardly known to you;
suffice it, then, that they were once great people, and are now fallen
to the brink of destitution. Nothing now belongs to them but the
residencia, and certain leagues of desert mountain, in the greater part
of which not even a goat could su