"In that cave were mair than twa hundred deid corpses, a rankit up in rows against the walls; for it was a burial place for the Guanchos, who, instead of putting their deid like Christians into a grave, bathe and parboil them in butter and wild lavender, black gum and wild sage--for sae Father Zuill told me; and after drying them in the sunshine in summer, and the cauld breezes in winter, they sow them up in goatskins, and then the mummies are hard as a ship's figure-head, yea, and harder, for they will never decay; and there they stood, twa hundred or mair, wi' their tanned visages and sichtless eyen, their hair and beards all brushed and plaited, and as if they yet lived; and oh, there was an awesome grin on their shrivelled maws! "It was a sight even for a sailor to scunner at, and we glowered at them for awhile, ilk ane o' us ashamed to be the first to put up his helm and be off. At last Gibbie o' Crail, an auld sea-horse, that feared nocht, and had mair owre a gude dram under his hatches, began to examine them, in the hope of finding some braw goud or trinket; and solemnly Mathieson and I warned him to let the deid corpses alane; but he laughed, and tumbled them owre like nine-pins. There was ane, a great stark and brawny corpse, wi' a lang scar across its nose, and twa precious stanes, like emeralds, glinting where its eyen should be. Gibbie said, wi' an oath, that he was sure it was the prince o' the Guanchos, whom he had slain twenty years before, and wi' a dab o' his jocketeleg, picked out one of the emeralds. But lo! "At that moment the jaws opened, and there came frae them a yell that shook the dust frae the cavern roof; that seemed to mak the corpses start, and made Gibbie spring ten feet awa; and then we turned and fled, wi' every hair on our heids bristling; and without ever daring ance to look astern, we cam' plunging doon the side o' the peak, through the laurel bushes and owre the sulphur banks, till we reached the creek, where the yawl and the pinnace, wi' the last o' the water-casks, were about putting off, and mair deid than alive wi' terror, we sprang on board. We were just in time to reach the boats and get a rope's-ending for disobeying orders; for though Sir Andrew was but a skipper then, as I tauld ye, he kept a tight hand owre his crew." "May I drink bilge if ever I--" began the gunner.