The visit over, the prior prepared to return to his convent, and walked along leisurely, knowing as it was then spring tide that two or three hours must elapse before the returning waves could bar the passage to the islet. The servant lingered behind, and when he arrived on the beach found his master already half way over. His curiosity had been vividly excited by the repeated injunctions of his master that he should abstain carefully from opening the book. He began to think that it must contain something very wonderful, and that, as but few minutes must elapse before their arrival at the convent, when the mysterious volume would, without doubt, be instantly demanded by the prior, if he did not seize this opportunity of acquainting himself with its contents, no other occasion might ever present itself. He yielded to the temptation, opened the book, and began to read. The prior by this time had arrived at about the middle of the causeway, and was astonished to find the tide rising rapidly and threatening to cut off his further progress, either backwards or forwards. He felt that some unnatural agency was at work, and, guessing how matters stood, looked back to the shore which he had just left, and saw his faithless servant comfortably seated on a heap of dried sea-weed, with the fatal volume spread open on his knees. He was reading aloud, and the prior caught enough of the words to know that his attendant had hit upon the spell which causes the tides to rise out of their usual course, and, moreover, that he was reading most leisurely. In great fright he called out to the man to read on quickly to the end, as he knew that then the waves would stop and return to their proper limits. The servant was too much absorbed in his reading to pay any attention to the directions given him, and the waves had by this time reached above the prior’s waist. In mortal agony he called out for the second time:-- “If thou canst not read forwards, read backwards!” The roaring waves this time effectually drowned his voice. The servant read on, but long before he had arrived at the end of the incantation, the sea had covered the profane priest, and the demon whom the magic lines had evoked carried off his prey.[175] [173] EDITOR’S NOTE.--Mr. S. Carey Curtis, who is an architect, has made some very interesting plans of the ruins of Lihou Priory, and has shown their correspondence with the architecture of the building depicted on this stone. I will quote his exact words:--