k, for the boat was not built for speed; and by the time
they had got about midway, the sun went down, and twilight and the
melancholy flush of the sunset tints were upon the lake and fells.

"Ho! here comes the breeze--up from Golden Friars," said Feltram; "we
shall have enough to fill the sails now. If you don't fear spirits and
Snakes Island, it is all the better for us it should blow from that
point. If it blew from Mardykes now, it would be a stiff pull for you
and me to get this tub home."

Talking as if to himself, and laughing low, he adjusted the sail and
took the tiller, and so, yielding to the rising breeze, the boat glided
slowly toward still distant Mardykes Hall.

The moon came out, and the shore grew misty, and the towering fells rose
like sheeted giants; and leaning on the gunwale of the boat, Sir Bale,
with the rush and gurgle of the water on the boat's side sounding
faintly in his ear, thought of his day's adventure, which seemed to him
like a dream--incredible but for the heavy bag that lay between his
feet.

As they passed Snakes Island, a little mist, like a fragment of a fog,
seemed to drift with them, and Sir Bale fancied that whenever it came
near the boat's side she made a dip, as if strained toward the water;
and Feltram always put out his hand, as if waving it from him, and the
mist seemed to obey the gesture; but returned again and again, and the
same thing always happened.

It was three weeks after, that Sir Bale, sitting up in his bed, very
pale and wan, with his silk night-cap nodding on one side, and his thin
hand extended on the coverlet, where the doctor had been feeling his
pulse, in his darkened room, related all the wonders of this day to
Doctor Torvey. The doctor had attended him through a fever which
followed immediately upon his visit to Cloostedd.

"And, my dear sir, by Jupiter, can you really believe all that delirium
to be sober fact?" said the doctor, sitting by the bedside, and actually
laughing.

"I can't help believing it, because I can't distinguish in any way
between all that and everything else that actually happened, and which I
must believe. And, except that this is more wonderful, I can find no
reason to reject it, that does not as well apply to all the rest."

"Come, come, my dear sir, this will never do--nothing is more common.
These illusions accompanying fever frequently antedate the attack, and
the man is actually raving before he knows he is ill."

"B