"Found! certainly. She never was lost. However, ye'll hear all
about that matter again. Just leave it all to me, Halcro, and dinna
be downcast about biding here another night. But I must away now.
Good e'en to ye!"

"Good e'en, sir!"

The good man was leaving me abruptly, when at the door he turned
back.

"Oh, Halcro!" said he, as though suddenly remembering something,
"they tell me that your viking's stone has been amissing. Have ye
heard anything of it yet?"

"Why, yes, Mr. Drever," I replied. "I found it at the head of the
Gaulton Cliff on Saturday."

"Just so," said he smiling, "I had heard that. Now that stone may
be wanted in evidence. Would you mind letting me have it?"

"Here it is, sir," I said, handing it to him.

And taking it with him, he left me to my thoughts.

The morning of the inquiry came round, and at about ten o'clock
Jimmy Macfarlane opened the door of my place of confinement and
beckoned me to follow him. He conducted me through a long passage
into a large room adjoining the prison house.

It was a comfortable apartment, with a bright peat fire burning on
the hearth, before which Colin Lothian's dog lay sound asleep.
Close to the fire and athwart the room was a long table, where, as
I entered, I saw Bailie Duke seated at his ease in a large
armchair. At his right sat Bailie Thomson--a man with a forbidding
face, whom I had often of late seen in the company of Carver
Kinlay. At Mr. Duke's left hand was the schoolmaster, prim and
businesslike as I had often seen him look in the school when
anything of importance was pending, such as a class examination.
Near him sat Lieutenant Fox, looking very handsome in his naval
uniform, and very much at his ease. The only other person in the
room was Dr. Linklater, who smiled a greeting to me as I stood at
the door.

"Take a seat there, Ericson, my lad," said Mr. Duke, indicating a
chair opposite to him in the middle of the floor.

And then he turned to the dominie, speaking with him in an
undertone.

These five men, who were all in different degrees known to me,
presented no very formal aspect, and I felt no dread of what was to
follow. As I sat there awaiting the opening of the proceedings I
looked straight before me at the long table. Here, lying in front
of the two bailies, were my fowling piece and a coil of rope.
Before Mr. Drever lay Jarl Haffling's talisman; also, to my
surprise, I observed the wooden box that I had seen in the cave,
a