if some magic had oiled the waters. Within the land-locked cove the wind
no longer howled and the surface was smooth. It was like awaking from the
unrest of a nightmare to the peace of one's bed. We glided on, losing
headway, for Frenchy had let the sheets run. With movements apparently
slow, yet with the deftness which brings quick results, the sails were
gathered about the masts and made fast, and presently we drifted against
the small forest of poles supporting the flakes and fishhouses. These
were black and glistening with the rain and from them came an odor, acrid
and penetrating, of decaying fish in ill-emptied gurry-butts and of
putrefying livers oozing out a black oil in open casks.

We made our way over the precarious footing of unstable planks and shook
ourselves like wet dogs, while Sammy stopped for a moment to hunt beneath
his oilskins for a sodden plug of tobacco, from which he managed to gnaw
off a satisfactory portion.

"Well, we's here, anyways," he observed, quietly.

"Sammy, you're a wonderful man!" I exclaimed, earnestly.

The old fellow looked at me, but his seamed face appeared devoid of
understanding. Slowly there seemed to dawn upon his mind the idea that
this might be some sort of jest on my part, and the tanned leather of his
countenance wrinkled further into a near approach to a smile, as we
started up the steep path leading up to the village.

Yet I had meant no pleasantry whatever, for really I was awed by the
mystery of it all. In the fog that rolled in with the north-east gale we
had left Will's Island, ten miles away, and skirted, without ever seeing
them, some miles of cliffs. We had avoided scores of rocks over which the