vil eye, then she said slowly:

"You'll come."

Betsey Fraddam's cave had an evil reputation. It was the meeting-place
for all the evil women in the neighbourhood. Women who possessed
terrible power. I had been taught to believe in them and to avoid
coming into collision with them.

"Who'll be there?" I asked.

"You'll see," she said.

I went home soon after, pondering over Deborah's words. We retired to
bed early at our house, and by ten o'clock quietness reigned
everywhere. I could not sleep, however. My mind was excited by what
old Deborah had told me, and when eleven o'clock came I had an intense
desire to go to Fraddam's cave. The witch of Fraddam was almost a
household word among the simple people. It was said that she was
constantly raising storms and working mischief, and that if any one saw
her thus engaged, woe be to that one for ever after. From my earliest
childhood I had been frightened with stories of Betsey Fraddam's cave.
It was whispered that the terrible witch herself met the living witches
and goaded them on to terrible deeds.

Still I wanted to go. In the silence of the night the curse of the
Trewinion's became terrible to me, and I was anxious to know how I
could avert it. Besides, so much had my mind been filled with stories
of the superstitious and wonderful that I felt afraid to disobey the
old woman's summons. It is true I was a young man fairly well
educated, and as a consequence disbelieved many of the stories of a
priest-ridden age. And it may be that as the years roll by future
generations may disbelieve in what we speak of to-day, even as we
disbelieve the stories of the past. Nevertheless, at half-past eleven
I rose and dressed quietly in order to go down to Fraddam's cave.

I remembered the old vicar's words, however, and said my prayers before
starting, and then hurried down the precipitous pathway to the sand.
The tide was out, and I could hear the sweet murmur of the sea in the
distance. There was no wind, and the pale light of the moon lit up the
scene, which was grand in the extreme. On my right hand behind me,
rose the giant cliffs, rugged and forbidding, on the great headland
stood our house, bluff and bold like an old castle.

I looked in the direction of the cave of evil repute, but could see
nothing. My heart throbbed wildly. As old Deborah had said, we
Trewinions never feared the living, but we trembled at the thought of
the dead.

As I drew near F