As evening came on I must confess my early jubilation waned somewhat. The thin, harsh air, the melancholy cry of the birds, the eternal desolation of the coast, chilled me with a creeping terror of our remoteness from all that friendly warmth and comfort we had rashly deserted. Not a light greeted us from the shore but such as shone ghastly in the lifeless wastes of foam. The last coast town, miles behind, seemed to have passed us beyond the final bounds of civilization. So that it was with something like a whimper of joy that I welcomed the sudden picture of a hill notched oddly far ahead against the darkening sky. I ran hurriedly to Uncle Jenico. “Uncle!” I cried. “Uncle, look! The Abbot’s Mitre!” The skipper heard me, and answered. “Aye,” said he, “it’s the Mitre, sure enow,” and spat over the taffrail. There was something queer in his tone. He rolled his quid in his cheek. “And like enow, by all they say,” he added, looking at Uncle Jenico, “to figure agen for godliness.” “Eh?” said my uncle; “I beg your pardon?” “Granted,” answered the skipper shortly; and that was all. There was an uneasy atmosphere of enigma here. But we were abroad after adventure, when all was said, and had no cause to complain. I stood holding my uncle’s hand, while we ran our last knot for home in the twilight. As we neared the hill its peculiar shape was gradually lost, and instead, looking up from below, we saw the cap of a broken tower showing over its swell. Then hill and ruin dropped behind us, a shadowy bulk, and of a sudden we were come opposite a sandy cleft cutting up into the cliff, and below on the shingle a ghostly group of boats and shore-loafers, though still no light or sign of houses. We brought to, the sails flapping, and the skipper sent a long melancholy boom sounding over the water from a horn. It awoke a stir on the beach, and presently we saw a boat put off, and come curtseying towards us. It was soon alongside, revealing three men, of whom the one who sat steering was a little remarkable. He was immensely tall and slouching, with a lank bristled jaw, a swarthy skin, and, in spectral contrast, eye-places of such an odd sick pallor as to give him the appearance, at least in this gloaming, of wearing huge spectacles. However, he was the authoritative one of the three, and welcomed us civilly enough for early visitors to Dunberry, hoping we should favour the place. “None so well as thee, Jole, since thy convarsion,” bellowed the skipper, as we pushed off. There followed a chuckle of laughter from the ketch, and I noticed even that the two men pulling us creased their cheeks. Their companion, unmoving, clipped out something like an oath, which he gruffly and hastily coughed over. “The Lord in His wrath visit not the scoffer,” he said aloud, “nor waft him blindfold this night upon the Weary Sands!”