"I wonder that the otter should bite you like that, Halcro," Jessie said. "Why, I thought the old viking's stone was to save ye frae the like o' that!" I had myself wondered at the same circumstance. "Ah! but, Jessie," I said, suddenly comforting myself with an excuse for the apparent failure of the charm, "Mr. Drever didna tell me that the stone would be o' any use against such a beast as an otter." "No, I ken that. But did he not say it would protect ye from all harm? Surely an otter shouldna be left out o' the reckoning." But here Colin Lothian, to whom the virtues of the viking's talisman had been explained, suggested that I perhaps needed to have some secret communication with the stone in my own mind--that I perhaps needed to think of the charm at the very moment of danger, and to call upon it for aid. He had heard of such things, he said. This explanation appeared to me very reasonable, and with the suggestion in my mind I determined, should I ever have another opportunity, to put it in practice. Such an opportunity presented itself sooner than I could have expected. Chapter XVIII. The Wreck Of The "Undine." Colin Lothian remained at Lyndardy until the following Monday morning. He slept out in the byre, where such wayfarers as he were always welcome to a supper and a bed, and in the evenings he would come in to the kitchen to sit with my uncle and talk over the affairs of the island, or to read us a chapter out of the well-worn Testament that he carried with him on his wanderings. For Colin was a religious man and loved his Bible. He knew most of the Psalms by heart, and often gathered groups of islanders about him to hear him repeat them. Idlers sometimes scoffed at his fondness for the epistle on Charity; but no one who heard him repeat it could fail to be impressed by its teaching or to recognize the poor wanderer's sincerity.