d another day there something more would be welcome.

But then it struck him that if he went up in the dark he might never be
able to find his way back again. The cleft under the slab was difficult
to hit upon even in daylight. There were scores of just similar ragged
black holes among the tumbled rocks of the great wall.

As he lay pondering it all, the grim idea came into his head of dragging
the dead man through the tunnel, and hoisting him up outside, and
leaving him propped up among the boulders where they would be sure to
find him.

He knew how arrantly superstitious they were, most of them. They had
been brought up on ghosts and witches and evil spirits, and, fearless as
they might be of things mortal and natural, all that bordered on the
unknown and uncanny held for them unimaginable terrors. The dead man
might serve a useful purpose after all; and the grim idea grew.

He could decide nothing, however, till he learned if he had the rock to
himself; and he determined to take the risk of finding this out.

He cautiously climbed the well, and by the look of the stars he judged
it still very early morning. A brooding grey darkness covered the sea;
the sky was dark even in the east.

He slipped off his coat and left it hanging out of the cleft as a
landmark, and lowered himself silently from rock to rock, till he stood
among the rank grasses below.

Food first--so, after patient listening for smallest sound or sign of a
watch, he crept down to the slope where the puffins' nests were, and,
wrapping his hand in Nance's napkin, managed to get out a dozen eggs
from as many different holes, in spite of the fierce objections of their
legitimate owners.

He tied these up carefully in the blood-spotted cloth, and carried them
up to his cleft. Then he stole away like a shadow, to find out, if he
could, if there was any one else on the rock besides himself and the
dead man.

There had been hot disputes on that head in the boats. Those who were
there for the first time had even gone the length of casting strongest
possible doubts as to whether those who were there the night before had
seen or heard anything whatever, and did not hesitate to state their
belief that they were all on a fool's errand. The others replied in
kind, and when the further question was mooted as to keeping watch all
night, the scoffers told the others to keep watch if they chose; for
themselves, they were going home to their beds.

"Frightened