“Ay, sure enough, he’s there, the poor bairn. Lord save us, and keep us! The lassie’s intil the water, and it up ower her head, and she’s drownded. No, but she’s up again, and she’s swimmin’ along like as if she was a sea maiden with hair all wet. Eh, but she swims fine, and she’s gotten hold of the wee boatie wi’ the laddie’s dinner on it. Look at the white arms of her moving through the water, they’re like the salmon fish slithering along when the net is pulled in. She’s bonny, so she is. See till her now! See till her if she hasna lighted on some kind of a rock. She’s standing up on it, and the sea no more than up to the knees of her. The water is running off her, and she’s shaking herself like a wee dog. She doesna mind it. She’s waving her hand to me and her in the very mouth of thon awful cave. Mine yourself, Miss Una, take heed now, like a good lass. Dinna go further, you’re far enough. Bide where you are, and shout till him. Lord save us, she’s off again, and the wee boatie in front of her. I’ve known a wheen o’ lassies in my time that would do queer things for the lads they had their hearts set on, but ne’er a one as venturesome as her. I’m thinking Master Neal himself would look twice e’er he swam into thon dark hole. Eh, poor laddie, but there’ll be light in his eyes when he sees the white glint of her coming till him where he’s no expecting her or the like of her.” Indeed, Una was not so brave as she seemed. Her heart beat quicker as she struck out into the gloom of the cave. The water was colder, or seemed colder, than it had been outside. The splashing of drops from the roof, and the echoing noise of the sea’s wash awed her. She felt a tightening in her throat. She swam with faster and faster strokes. The sides of the cave loomed huge about her. The roof seemed immensely, remotely, high. The water was dark now. It was a solemn thing to swim through it. She began to wonder how far it was to the end of the cave. A sudden terror seized her. Suppose, after all, that Neal was not in the cave, suppose that she was swimming in this awful place alone. She shouted aloud-- “Neal, Neal, Neal Ward, are you there?” The cave echoed her cries. A thousand repetitions of the name she had shouted came to her from above, from behind, from right, from left. The rocks flung her words to each other, bandied them to and fro, turned them into ridicule, turned them into thundering sounds of terror, turned them into shrill shrieks. The frightened pigeons flew from their rocky perches; their wings set new echoes going. Una swam forward, and, reckless with fright now, shouted again. She heard some one rushing down to meet her from the remote depths of the cave. The great stones rolled and crashed under his feet with a noise like the firing of guns. Then, amid a babel of echoes, came a shout answering her’s. “I’m coming to you, Una.”