boat off with an oar. We had never guessed how big the thing really
was,--not big at all for an island, but very large for a bare,
off-shore rock. I should say that it was just about the bigness of
an ordinary house, and very black and beetling, with not a spear of
grass or anything on it. When Jerry said, "My stars, _what_ a weird
place!" his voice went booming and rumbling in among the rocks, and
a lot of gulls flew up suddenly, flapping and shrieking. He held the
boat up against the edge of a rock while Greg and I got out. We took
the kit-bag ashore, and Jerry made the boat fast by putting a big
piece of stone on top of the rope. There was nothing like a beach or
even a shelving rock to pull it up on, so that was the best we could
do. The boat backed away as far as it could, but the rope was firmly
wedged between the rock and the stone so it couldn't get away.

Of course we went first to look at the black cave-entrance. Sure
enough, a great flat slab had fallen down from it and lay half in
the water,--we could see scratchy marks and broken places where it
had slid. The cave itself was about six feet deep, and very dank and
dismal-looking. There was no sign of there ever having been
treasure, for nobody could possibly have buried it, unless they'd
hewn places in the living rock, like ancient Egyptians. We might
have thought of that before, but of course we didn't honestly
believe that there was treasure. Somehow the Sea Monster didn't seem
nearly so jolly and exciting as it had from Wecanicut. It was so
real and big, and whenever a wave came in, it boomed and echoed
under the hanging-over rocks. We climbed around to the other side
and went up on top of the highest place, which was about three times
as high as I am. From there we could see the Headland, very far
away and blue, and Wecanicut behind us, safe and green and
friendly-looking, but a long way off; and nothing else but a smeary
line of smoke from a steamer at sea.

"We named this place well," I said; "it _is_ a Monster."

"Brrrr, hear it roar!" Jerry said. "The waves must be bigger, or
something. There weren't any when we came out."

We looked down and saw that the water was behaving differently.
Instead of being smooth and rolling, there was a skitter of sharp
ripples all over it, and the waves went _slap_ and frothed white
when they hit the rock. The sky had changed, too. It was not so
blue, and there were switchy mares' tails across it, and the wind
w