er and stood there, squalling. The woman listened to its
cries as if they were words. Her look of hate deepened. Raising her hand,
she cried, "Your day is near its end. Repent!"

"Bah! You have heard what I have said. If on Friday you are not
elsewhere, I'll tear the timbers down and bury you in the ruins."

"Enough!" cried the woman, her form straightening, her voice grown
shrill. "My curse is on you here and hereafter. Die! Then go down to
hell!"

As she said this the cat leaped from her shoulder to the flank of the
horse, spitting and clawing, and the frightened steed set off at a
furious pace. As he disappeared in the scrub oaks his master was seen
vainly trying to stop him. The evening closed in with fog and chill, and
before the light waned a man faring homeward came upon the corpse of
Southward Howland stretched along the ground.

AUNT RACHEL'S CURSE

On a headland near Plymouth lived "Aunt Rachel," a reputed seer, who made
a scant livelihood by forecasting the future for such seagoing people as
had crossed her palm. The crew of a certain brig came to see her on the
day before sailing, and she reproached one of the lads for keeping bad
company. "Avast, there, granny," interrupted another, who took the
chiding to himself. "None of your slack, or I'll put a stopper on your
gab." The old woman sprang erect. Levelling her skinny finger at the man,
she screamed, "Moon cursers! You have set false beacons and wrecked ships
for plunder. It was your fathers and mothers who decoyed a brig to these
sands and left me childless and a widow. He who rides the pale horse be
your guide, and you be of the number who follow him!"

That night old Rachel's house was burned, and she barely escaped with her
life, but when it was time for the brig to sail she took her place among
the townfolk who were to see it off. The owner of the brig tried to
console her for the loss of the house. "I need it no longer," she
answered, "for the narrow house will soon be mine, and you wretches
cannot burn that. But you! Who will console you for the loss of your
brig?"

"My brig is stanch. She has already passed the worst shoal in the bay."

"But she carries a curse. She cannot swim long."

As each successive rock and bar was passed the old woman leaned forward,
her hand shaking, her gray locks flying, her eyes starting, her lips
mumbling maledictions, "like an evil spirit, chiding forth the storms as
ministers of vengeance." The last sh