eneral, even in spring-tides, displayed a hulk like
the keel of a large vessel, was now quite under water, and its place
only indicated by the boiling and breaking of the eddying waves which
encountered its submarine resistance.

"Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy," continued the old man--"mak
haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o' my arm--an auld and frail arm it's
now, but it's been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o' my
arm, my winsome leddy! D'ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing
waves yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o' a brig--it's
sma' eneugh now--but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown
o' my hat, I winna believe but we'll get round the Ballyburgh Ness, for
a' that's come and gane yet."

Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir
Arthur was less able to afford her. The waves had now encroached so much
upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto
had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot
of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges.
It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour, or his
daughter, to have found their way along these shelves without the
guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in
high tides, though never, he acknowledged, "in sae awsome a night as
this."

It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with
the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three
devoted beings, who, pent between two of the most magnificent, yet
most dreadful objects of nature--a raging tide and an insurmountable
precipice--toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by
the spray of some giant billow, which threw itself higher on the beach
than those that had preceded it. Each minute did their enemy gain ground
perceptibly upon them! Still, however, loth to relinquish the last
hopes of life, they bent their eyes on the black rock pointed out
by Ochiltree. It was yet distinctly visible among the breakers, and
continued to be so, until they came to a turn in their precarious
path, where an intervening projection of rock hid it from their sight.
Deprived of the view of the beacon on which they had relied, they now
experienced the double agony of terror and suspense. They struggled
forward, however; but, when they arrived at the point from which they
ought to have se