"He must have missed his footing in the dark; and then the rope broke
with his weight and the clutch he give it. It lies there all loose on
the ground."

"It shouldn't have broken," said the constable. "But I always did say
we'd ought to have an iron chain down there."


CHAPTER III.

Fifty years had passed, with all their seasons' changes, and the
changing life of nature both by land and sea, and had made as little
impression on the island as the ceaseless dashing of the waves against
its coast. The cliffs, the caves and the sea-beaten boulders were the
same; the colours of the bracken on the September hills, and of the sea
anemones in their green, pellucid pools, were the same, and the
fishermen's path down to the cove was the same. No iron chain had been
put there, but the rope had never broken again.

A violent south-west gale was blowing, driving scud and sea-foam before
it, while ever new armies of rain-clouds advanced threateningly across
the shadowy waters--mighty, moving mists, whose grey-winged squadrons,
swift and irresistible, enveloped and almost blotted from sight the
little rock-bound island, against which the forces of nature seemed to
be for ever spending themselves in vain. From time to time through a gap
in the shifting cloud-ranks there shone a sudden dazzling gleam of
sunlight on the white crests of the sea-horses far away.

The good French pastor, who struggled to discharge the offices of