Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale
from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the
last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands
far out from that evil place.

On the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea.
It was a country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-colored, with
an occasional church tower to mark the site of some old-world
village. In every direction upon these moors there were traces
of some vanished race which had passed utterly away, and left as
it sole record strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which
contained the burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks
which hinted at prehistoric strife. The glamour and mystery of
the place, with its sinister atmosphere of forgotten nations,
appealed to the imagination of my friend, and he spent much of
his time in long walks and solitary meditations upon the moor.
The ancient Cornish language had also arrested his attention, and
he had, I remember, conceived the idea that it was akin to the
Chaldean, and had been largely derived from the Phoenician
traders in tin. He had received a consignment of books upon
philology and was settling down to develop this thesis when
suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found
ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at
our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and
infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us
from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were
violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of
a series of events which caused the utmost excitement not only in
Cornwall but throughout the whole west of England. Many of my