Duncan would think no more of it; and my uncle would think no more of it; and the marks would go away altogether. But now I will tell you what happened, and you will see whether it would not make a strong man afraid. As the evening came on, my uncle he was getting more and more uneasy; and he was looking at his hand; and the marks were becoming red now, instead of white. My uncle he could not sit still; and he could not do his work; what he said was, ’Duncan, it is the dog coming for me, to drag me into the water.’ Then says Duncan, ’How can he come for you? How can he climb up the ladder? But when it is the same hour that you were down on the rocks last night, then I will look out and see what I can see.’ And he did that. He opened the door, and looked down; and there was the dog, with its fore-paws on the first rung of the ladder, and its eyes glaring up. I can tell you, Calum, he did not wait long; he was himself like to fall down with fright; and when he got the door closed again, he put in all the iron stanchions as quickly as he could. And then he went and sate down. My uncle he was a little better by this time. ’The dog has gone away now,’ says he. ’I know it. But to-morrow night it will be back—and the next night—and the next night—until it drags me into the water. What is the use of fighting against it, Duncan? I might as well go down, and be drowned now; for the dog is coming back for me.’ But Duncan would not say that. He said ’I will contrive something. Perhaps it is not only drowning that is meant. And a man must not give up his life.’ And Duncan MacEachran was right there, Calum," continued Coinneach, in an absent kind of way, "for you know what the proverb says—’_There may be hopes of a person at sea, but none of one in the grave_.’ Very well, then, the next day he went into the store-room and he searched about till he found a trap they had brought out to see if they could get an otter; and during the afternoon he took down the trap to the rocks, and he was placing it at the foot of the ladder, and concealing the most of it with seaweed. But do you know what he put into the trap, Calum? No, you do not know; and if you were guessing for a hundred years, you would not guess. He put a New Testament—ay, that is what he was putting into the trap—a New Testament with a dark cover, in among the seaweed. ’Because,’ says he, ’if he sets his foot in the trap, then he will be caught, and we will see what kind of a dog he is; but if he is a kind of dog that cannot be caught in a trap, then the New Testament will burn his foot for him, and we will hear of him no more.’ That is what he was saying to my uncle. Then the evening came, and my uncle he got worse. He could not sit still; and he could not do his work. The marks on his hand were red again; and he knew that the dog was coming. Duncan MacEachran, perhaps he was frightened; but he would not say he was frightened; all that day, my