But to me the manner of that death had now become no longer a mystery. Shut out from the supposition that there had been actual violence, by the total absence of any proof of it, I had lighted upon another hypothesis respecting the crime, which to my mind, however, was no hypothesis, but a well-assured fact. It was, that by means of something mixed with the whisky of which he had drunk just before retiring to rest, the poor little minister had either been drugged into unconsciousness or actually poisoned, and in that condition conveyed from the house and disposed of as I had said. But although all this appeared to myself so lucid and certain, I knew well that I could bring forward no legal proof of the well-arranged villainy, and, that consequently, the scoundrels who had perpetrated it would in all probability escape punishment, and Mr Morgan's disappearance be attributed to accident. Inwardly raging at this thought, I was about to move away from the place of his entombment--for so I felt confident it was--when something occurred which arrested my steps, and made my heart leap. What that something was, I will endeavour to relate in as simple a manner as possible. For some time, during which the reflections I have recorded had been passing through my brain, my eyes had been resting quite unconsciously upon an abutting fragment of rock some twelve or fourteen feet below the level of the ground. The rock sloped sharply upwards, forming an acute angle with the well-nigh perpendicular walls of the 'Hole,' of which it constituted perhaps the chief irregularity. My gaze, I repeat, chanced to be resting upon this inclined abutment, when, with what indescribable amazement and awe may be imagined, I all at once saw a human hand and arm emerge from what appeared to be the solid granite of the upright side, and grasping the projecting shelf, draw after it the head and shoulders of a man. During the first moment the back of the head only was presented to my view; then slowly, and as though with difficulty, a white face was turned upwards! Although pale, and drawn as though in intense pain, I recognised it perfectly: it was that of the little minister. But before my bewildered faculties could collect themselves, or my paralysed tongue articulate a syllable, the hand had relaxed its hold, and the figure had slid back as it were, right into the rock. The suddenness and strangeness of this appearance so upset my nerves that my knees trembled and shook beneath me. Yet not for an instant did I entertain the idea that I had seen an apparition. That face I felt sure was the face of a living man, and belonged to none other than Mr Morgan himself. But notwithstanding my assurance upon this point, I was so startled by the unexpected phenomenon, that until I could hit upon some way of accounting for his presence in and disappearance from that singular spot, I could not even rejoice in the knowledge that my friend was alive. I did, however, hit upon a way