to my uncle; "so, you're a stranger. Will
you come a little way along o' me?" he added,
in a tone meant to be civil. My uncle
assented.

Passing the remaining cottages, from one of
which the skipper procured his telescope, they
ascended the nearest height, until they had
opened a large portion of the bay towards the
west. Then the man stopped, and extended his
shaggy blue arm in a direction a little to the
south of the now invisible Fughloe.

"The fog's shutting in again," he said;
"but you look there, steady. That's what keeps
us!"

My uncle did look steadily along the blue
arm and the brown finger, till they ended in fog
and sea; but, in the latter—through the former
—he fancied he could distinguish a low dark
object belonging to neither, the precise nature of
which was wholly indiscernible.

"Now you've got him, sir," said the man.
"Take the glass."

My uncle did so; and directed a long and
penetrating gaze at the mysterious object.

Twice he put down the glass, and twice—as
if unsatisfied with his observation—raised it
again to his eye.

"I see the—the islet—clearer now," he said,
at last; "but—but——"

"I know what's a-puzzling you, sir," said the
skipper. "You noticed, when we was standing
below, that it was two hours' flood; and yet
that little islet, as you call it, lifts higher and
higher."

"True. It was little more than a-wash when
I first made it out," said my uncle; "let me see
if——" he put the glass to his eye. "Why,
as I live, it has heaved up thirty feet at least
within this minute! Can any rock——"

"There's three hundred fathom, good,
between that rock and the bottom, sir," said the
man, quietly. "It's a creature!"

"Good Heavens, man!—do you mean to tell
me that object is a living thing?" exclaimed my
uncle, aghast.

For answer, the man pointed towards it.

His fingers trembling with excitement, my
uncle could not, for a moment, adjust the glass.
When he did so, a further change had taken
place, and the dispersing mist afforded him,
for the first time, a distinct and uninterrupted
view.

At a distance from the nearest point of shore,
which my uncle's professional eye estimated at
a league and a half, there floated, or rather
wallowed, in the sea a shapeless brownish mass, of
whose dimensions it was impossible to form
any conception whatever; for while at times it
seemed to contract to the length of perhaps a
hundred feet, with a breadth of half that
measure, there were moments when—if the
disturbance and displacement of the water might
indicate movements of the same animal—its
appalling proportions must have been measured
by rods, poles, and furlongs!

Through the skipper's glass, which was an
excellent one, my uncle observed that its height
out of the water had diminished by nearly half;
also that clouds of sea-fowl were whirling and
hovering about the weltering mass, though
without, so far as he could distinguish, daring
to settle upon it.

Fascinated by an object which seemed sent
to rebuke his incredulity, in placing before his
eyes this realisation of what had been hitherto
treated as fantastic dreams, my uncle
continued to gaze, rooted to the spot, until the
mist, in one of its perpetual changes, shut out
the object altogether, when the skipper, touching
his hat, made a movement to descend.

In their way back to the village, the seaman
told my uncle that, about a week before, the
bay of Scalloway, and indeed all the neighbouring
estuaries, had become suddenly filled with
immense shoals of every description of fish, the
take of herrings alone being such as to bid fair
to more than compensate for the losses of the
season. Three days before, while the bustle
was at its height, the wind light from sou'-sou'-
west, and smooth sea, a sealing-boat from Papa
Stour, approaching Scalloway, had rounded
Skelda Ness, and was running across the bay,
when one of the crew gave notice of an
extraordinary appearance, about a mile distant, on
the weather bow. The next moment, a mighty
globe of water, apparently many hundred yards
in circuit, rose to the height of their sloop's
mast, and, breaking off into huge billows, the
thunder of which was heard for miles around,
created a sea which, distant as was the vessel
from the source of commotion, tossed her like
an egg-shell.

Traditions of volcanic action are not unknown
to the Shetland seamen. Imagining that a
phenomenon of this kind was occurring, they at
once bore up, and, having the wind free, rapidly
increased their distance from the danger, while,
in every direction, boats, partaking of their
alarm, were seen scudding into port. The
appalled seamen glanced back to seaward. The
momentary storm had ceased, and the spray and
mist raised by the breaking water subsiding,
gave to view an enormous object rising, in a
somewhat irregular form, many feet above the
surface, and—unless the terror of the crew led
them to exaggerate—not less than half a mile
in extent.

"A rock thrown up," was their first idea.
One look through the glass dispelled it. The
object, whatever it might be, lived, moved, was
rolling round—or, at all events, swinging—with
a heavy lateral movement, like a vessel deeply
laden, the outline changing every moment;
while, at intervals, a mountainous wave, as if
created by some gigantic "wallow," would
topple over the smoother sea.

Dusk was closing in when the sealing-boat
reached the quay. They had been closer to the
monstrous visitor than any, except one small
craft—young Peter Magnus's—which had had
to stand out to sea, but was now seen
approaching. When she arrived, nearly the whole
population was assembled. and assailed her crew
with eager question. Peter looked grave and