"Ha!" he cried, grinning evilly, "I'll tear him limb from limb; slowly, kiddy, _slowly_!" He stressed the word lingeringly. "An' I'll sit just here an' watch his eyes, same as I meant to this morning." He sat motionless awhile, gazing terribly before him as though witnessing his cruel revenge in actual progress. "Six hours," he said. Then with an oath he dashed his hand across his eye as though to obliterate the picture, and smiling more pleasantly said, "Wull, let's row in for a bit, an' then for something wet at the _Dolphin_." "The _Dolphin_!" I cried. I gazed about me, and realized where we were. It was the very spot where the betrayal had been committed which was to have been so horribly expiated. We were by the Smugglers' Gate in Ebb-Tide Cave. Ebb-Tide Cave! "Dirk," I cried in sudden excitement, "is this the first of May?" "Ay, kiddy," he answered, "it is that." My father's song came into my mind. I could almost hear him singing it: "'Twas at Ebb-Tide Cave by the Smuggler's Gate, At the dawn of a summer's day; And there those happy lovers met, All on the first of May." So vivid was the fancy that I could actually hear my father's voice that I sat motionless, listening, till Dirk asked what ailed me. "Oh, Dirk," I said, "you must have fallen from Heaven. I've got to meet my father here to-day; and you've brought me." "Fallen from Heaven!" he repeated, his lips curling bitterly. "Yus, I reckon I have that. An' I don't see myself climbing back again. An' so," his voice changed, "your dad's coming, is he? Wull, I'll be off an' leave you to him then. An' if I see him at the _Dolphin_ I'll let him know there's a surprise packet down this way." He rowed me out into the Pool, where a great wind greeted us, and landed me on the rocks, then turned to row in up the Smugglers' Tunnel, for the tide was still almost at the full. But I suddenly remembered my knife and pistol. I think he understood my gesture as I clapped my hands to my sides feeling for them. He smiled darkly and nodded at my waist. I looked down; and there they were tucked in my belt, and in my excitement I hadn't noticed them. He didn't explain the mystery, but I thought I understood it: the sight of them there, to hand, yet useless, would have been an added torment to the perishing victim. So he left me and I watched him vanish, then clambered up the cliff so that I could see if any boat were making for the shore, and also if any one appeared from above, for I didn't know whether my father would come by sea or land; but that he would come I held for a certainty. Half-way up I found a good lookout point, and sat down and waited, my heart in a whirl of excitement at the prospect of seeing my father again. Indeed the joy of meeting him was so great that I hardly had a thought to bestow on the extraordinary way I had been spirited to the rendezvous.