rapidly unfurling its blackness over heaven. The others seemed to
consult; but the danger was too pressing to be braved, and they
bundled into the boat carrying my relies with them, and set forth
out of the bay with all speed of oars.

I made no more ado about the matter, but turned and ran for the
house. Whoever these men were, it was fit my uncle should be
instantly informed. It was not then altogether too late in the day
for a descent of the Jacobites; and may be Prince Charlie, whom I
knew my uncle to detest, was one of the three superiors whom I had
seen upon the rock. Yet as I ran, leaping from rock to rock, and
turned the matter loosely in my mind, this theory grew ever the
longer the less welcome to my reason. The compass, the map, the
interest awakened by the buckle, and the conduct of that one among
the strangers who had looked so often below him in the water, all
seemed to point to a different explanation of their presence on
that outlying, obscure islet of the western sea. The Madrid
historian, the search instituted by Dr. Robertson, the bearded
stranger with the rings, my own fruitless search that very morning
in the deep water of Sandag Bay, ran together, piece by piece, in
my memory, and I made sure that these strangers must be Spaniards
in quest of ancient treasure and the lost ship of the Armada. But
the people living in outlying islands, such as Aros, are answerable
for their own security; there is none near by to protect or even to
help them; and the presence in such a spot of a crew of foreign
adventurers - poor, greedy, and most likely lawless - filled me
with apprehensions for my uncle's money, and even for the safety of
his daughter. I was still wondering how we were to get rid of them
when I came, all breathless, to the top of Aros. The whole world
was shadowed over; only in the extreme east, on a hill of the