cries, induce him to make better haste. Only once he replied to me
complainingly, and like one in bodily pain: 'Ay, ay, man, I'm
coming.' Long before we had reached the top, I had no other
thought for him but pity. If the crime had been monstrous the
punishment was in proportion.

At last we emerged above the sky-line of the hill, and could see
around us. All was black and stormy to the eye; the last gleam of
sun had vanished; a wind had sprung up, not yet high, but gusty and
unsteady to the point; the rain, on the other hand, had ceased.
Short as was the interval, the sea already ran vastly higher than
when I had stood there last; already it had begun to break over
some of the outward reefs, and already it moaned aloud in the sea-
caves of Aros. I looked, at first, in vain for the schooner.

'There she is,' I said at last. But her new position, and the
course she was now lying, puzzled me. 'They cannot mean to beat to
sea,' I cried.

'That's what they mean,' said my uncle, with something like joy;
and just then the schooner went about and stood upon another tack,
which put the question beyond the reach of doubt. These strangers,
seeing a gale on hand, had thought first of sea-room. With the
wind that threatened, in these reef-sown waters and contending
against so violent a stream of tide, their course was certain
death.

'Good God!' said I, 'they are all lost.'

'Ay,' returned my uncle, 'a' - a' lost. They hadnae a chance but