r surprise Wright, who stood
there alone (for with a pocket telescope they clearly made out that it
_was_ Wright), still continued to wave his arms and beckon them in a
manner which they at first thought ridiculous, but which soon make them
feel rather uneasy. Jim took an oar, and they soon got within two
hundred yards of the beach. Wright had ceased to make signals, but
appeared to be shouting to them, and pointing towards one corner of the
glen; but though they caught the sound of his voice they could not hear
what he said.

"I wonder why Vernon isn't with him," said Eric anxiously; "I hope--why,
what _are_ you looking at, Charlie?"

"What's that in the water there?" said Wildney, pointing in the
direction to which Wright was also looking.

Montagu snatched the telescope out of his hand and looked. "Good God!"
he exclaimed, turning pale; "what can be the matter?"

"O _do_ let me look," said Eric.

"No! stop, stop, Eric, you'd better not, I think; pray don't, it may be
all a mistake. You'd better not--but it looked--nay, you really
_mustn't,_ Eric," he said, and, as if accidentally, he let the telescope
fall into the water, and they saw it sink down among the seaweeds at
the bottom.

Eric looked at him reproachfully. "What's the fun of that, Monty? you
let it drop on purpose."

"O never mind; I'll get Wildney another. I really daren't let you look,
for fear you should _fancy_ the same as I did, for it must be fancy. O
_don't_ let us put in there--at least not all of us."

What _was_ that thing in the water?--When Wright and Vernon left the
others, they walked along the coast, following the direction of the
boat, and agreed to amuse themselves in collecting eggs. They were very
successful, and, to their great delight, managed to secure some rather
rare specimens. When they had tired themselves with this pursuit, they
lay on the summit of one of the cliffs which formed the sides of Avon
Glen, and Wright, who was very fond of poetry, read Vernon a canto of
Marmion with great enthusiasm.

So they whiled away the morning, and when the canto was over, Vernon
took a great stone and rolled it for amusement over the cliff's edge. It
thundered over the side, bounding down till it reached the strand, and a
large black cormorant, startled by the reverberating echoes, rose up
suddenly, and flapped its way with protruded neck to a rock on the
further side of the little bay.

"I bet you that animal's got a nest somewhere