Our coachman would allow no further pause. The sunset was already casting a crimson light over the wastes of fern and bracken and the earthscars of abandoned mines, for the hills all about contain tin and copper, which it does not pay to work. Our old white nag--I hope his name was Merlin--seemed incapable of fatigue. I half suspect he was a sorcery steed of metal. Up and down the hills he scrambled with unquenchable enthusiasm. As the sun sank into a bed of bracken, we marvelled that the driver could be sure of his way across those dim and featureless moors, but he turned unerringly from one deep lane into another. As we drew nearer the Pool, that "middle mere" into which Sir Bedivere flung the jewel-hilted Excalibur, the evil powers began to array themselves against us. For the wild spirit Tregeagle, whose howling as he is chased by demon dogs has been heard all over Cornwall, is doomed for his sins in this mortal life to labour endlessly at the hopeless task of emptying Dozmare Pool. It is so deep--notwithstanding the awkward fact of its going dry in rainless summers--that not all the bell-ropes in Cornwall can reach to its bottom, and a thorn-bush, once flung into it, floated out into Falmouth harbour. The bailing must be done by a limpetshell with a hole in it and, altogether, it is no wonder that Tregeagle's temper has grown exceedingly morose. For change of occupation, he is sometimes taken to the north coast and set to spinning ropes of sand, or is given a choked-up harbour to sweep out, but these tasks please him no better, and the shrieks of his torment are borne on every storm. As we drove on, a light mist crept over the meadows and defined the course of an attendant stream. Clouds and trees took on weird aspects. There were Druid robes floating across the sky, misshapen figures crouching under the hedges, menacing arms shaken from the trees, and one wizard branch shot out and splashed our faces with unholy dew. The mist thickened and rose. The carriage left the road and bumped uncertainly along till it came to a stop at what we vaguely made out to be the foot of a hill. For by this time the clinging vapours had driven us into our waterproofs and so blurred all vision that the driver, who could not leave his fiery veteran of a horse, would not let us attempt the half-mile climb alone, but sent a shout plunging through that wet, white air and brought out some bogie of the moor embodied as a gaunt old Cornish dame to be our guide. Feeling her way with a stout stick, she led us up the hill and along a stony track where we could not see our steps nor one another's faces. When she stayed us with her staff and said we had reached the pool, we could discern nothing of the sort, but reckless of life and limb we followed her down an abrupt bank and over a hummocky bit of ground to the very brink, as she assured us, of the bottomless tarn. We tried to think we saw a glimmer, although we heard not even