heavy for her to bear. Then they redoubled their
cruelties.

It was a wonderfully lovely day. In the blue heaven there was not a
cloud. We had reached the river's mouth, and were fast approaching the
stakes that had already been fixed in the sands for our execution; nay,
the piles of green wood were already being heaped up by the young men.
There was, there could be, no hope, and, weary and wounded, I almost
welcomed the prospect of death, however cruel.

Suddenly the blows ceased to shower on me, and I heard a cry from the
lips of the old priest, and, turning about, I saw that the eyes of all
the assembled multitude were fixed on a point on the horizon.

Looking automatically in the direction towards which they were gazing, I
beheld--oh joy, oh wonder!--I beheld a long trail of cloud floating level
with the sea! It was the smoke of a steamer!

"Too late, too late," I thought, and bitterly reflected that, had the
vessel appeared but an hour earlier, the attention of my cruel captors
might have been diverted to such a spectacle as they had never seen
before.

But it was _not_ too late.

Perched on a little hillock, and straining his gaze to the south, the old
priest was speaking loudly and excitedly. The crowd deserted us, and
gathered about him.

I threw myself on the sand, weary, hopeless, parched with thirst, and
racked with pain. Bludger was already lying in a crumpled mass at my
feet. I think he had fainted.

I retained consciousness, but that was all. The fierceness of the sun
beat upon me, the sky and sea and shore swam before me in a mist.
Presently I heard the voice of the priest, raised in the cadences which
he favoured when he was reading texts out of their sacred books, if books
they could be called. I looked at him with a faint curiosity, and
perceived that he held in his hands the wooden casket, adorned with
strangely carved bands of gold and ivory, which I had seen on the night
of my arrival on the island.

From this he had selected the old grey scraps of metal, scratched, as I
was well aware, with what they conceived to be ancient prophecies.

I was now sufficiently acquainted with the language to understand the
verses which he was chanting, and which I had already heard, without
comprehending them. They ran thus in English:

"But when a man, having a chimney pot on his head, and four eyes, appears
in Scheria, and when a ship without sails also comes, sailing without
wind, and brea