shines through a
window as the great shape swings by. Some recollection is drifting back
to me with it as I listen with beating heart.

"There's someone in it, by heavens! Give way, boys--lay her alongside.
Handsomely, now! The door's fastened; try the window; no! here's
another!"

In another moment we are trampling in the water which washes the floor
to the depth of several inches. It is a large room, at the farther end
of which an old man is sitting wrapped in a blanket, holding a candle in
one hand, and apparently absorbed in the book he holds with the other. I
spring toward him with an exclamation:

"Joseph Tryan!"

He does not move. We gather closer to him, and I lay my hand gently on
his shoulder, and say:

"Look up, old man, look up! Your wife and children, where are they? The
boys--George! Are they here? are they safe?"

He raises his head slowly, and turns his eyes to mine, and we
involuntarily recoil before his look. It is a calm and quiet glance,
free from fear, anger, or pain; but it somehow sends the blood curdling
through our veins. He bowed his head over his book again, taking no
further notice of us. The men look at me compassionately, and hold their
peace. I make one more effort:

"Joseph Tryan, don't you know me? the surveyor who surveyed your
ranch--the Espiritu Santo? Look up, old man!"

He shuddered and wrapped himself closer in his blanket. Presently he
repeated to himself "The surveyor who surveyed your ranch--Espiritu
Santo" over and over again, as though it were a lesson he was trying to
fix in his memory.

I was turning sadly to the boatmen when he suddenly caught me fearfully
by the hand and said:

"Hush!"

We were silent.

"Listen!" He puts his arm around my neck and whispers in my ear, "I'm a
MOVING OFF!"

"Moving off?"

"Hush! Don't speak so loud. Moving off. Ah! wot's that? Don't you
hear?--there! listen!"

We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click beneath the floor.

"It's them wot he sent!--Old Altascar sent. They've been here all night.
I heard 'em first in the creek, when they came to tell the old man to
move farther off. They came nearer and nearer. They whispered under the
door, and I saw their eyes on the step--their cruel, hard eyes. Ah, why
don't they quit?"

I tell the men to search the room and see if they can find any further
traces of the family, while Tryan resumes his old attitude. It is so
much like the figure I remember on the breezy night tha