urally one of them. It was a fact
that from time to time long flames appeared, sometimes on a broken piece
of wall, sometimes on the summit of the tower which was the highest
point of Dundonald Castle.

Did these flames really assume a human shape, as was asserted? Did they
merit the name of fire-maidens, given them by the people of the coast?
It was evidently just an optical delusion, aided by a good deal of
credulity, and science could easily have explained the phenomenon.

However that might be, these fire-maidens had the reputation of
frequenting the ruins of the old castle and there performing wild
strathspeys, especially on dark nights. Jack Ryan, bold fellow though he
was, would never have dared to accompany those dances with the music of
his bagpipes.

"Old Nick is enough for them!" said he. "He doesn't need me to complete
his infernal orchestra."

We may well believe that these strange apparitions frequently furnished
a text for the evening stories. Jack Ryan was ending the evening with
one of these. His auditors, transported into the phantom world, were
worked up into a state of mind which would believe anything.

All at once shouts were heard outside. Jack Ryan stopped short in the
middle of his story, and all rushed out of the barn. The night was
pitchy dark. Squalls of wind and rain swept along the beach. Two or
three fishermen, their backs against a rock, the better to resist the
wind, were shouting at the top of their voices.

Jack Ryan and his companions ran up to them. The shouts were, however,
not for the inhabitants of the farm, but to warn men who, without being
aware of it, were going to destruction. A dark, confused mass appeared
some way out at sea. It was a vessel whose position could be seen by
her lights, for she carried a white one on her foremast, a green on
the starboard side, and a red on the outside. She was evidently running
straight on the rocks.

"A ship in distress?" said Ryan.

"Ay," answered one of the fishermen, "and now they want to tack, but
it's too late!"

"Do they want to run ashore?" said another.

"It seems so," responded one of the fishermen, "unless he has been
misled by some--"

The man was interrupted by a yell from Jack. Could the crew have heard
it? At any rate, it was too late for them to beat back from the line of
breakers which gleamed white in the darkness.

But it was not, as might be supposed, a last effort of Ryan's to warn
the doomed ship. He now