already in the water, and fifty dexterous hands
busied in stepping the mast, setting the sails,
and stowing the shingle-ballast. She was ready.

"Who's going with you, since you will go?"
growled Edmonston.

"I've only room for one man living," said
Sinclair, in his sinister way. "Now, I don't
want to take advantage over Peter Magnus.
Him, or none."

The young man stood irresolute for a moment,
then, with one glance at Leasha, leaped into
the boat. Sinclair pushed off, eagerly.

"You have done well, girl," said Edmonston,
sternly. "If either return alive, it will not be
Peter Magnus."

"What—what do you mean?" exclaimed
the girl, clutching his sleeve as he turned away.

"That Gilbert Sinclair is a treacherous,
malignant devil, and at this moment mad with
jealous——Stop——"

But Leasha had dashed down the beach.

"Peter! Peter!" she shrieked, "come back!
For the love of Heaven—back! I must speak
with you!"

"Too late!" replied Sinclair, with a grin.
"Wait till he brings you what you want to
know."

As the last word was uttered there was a
splash astern. Magnus had leaped into the water.

"Ha! ha! Coward!" roared Sinclair, as his
boat shot into the fog.

Evening was now approaching, and my uncle,
deeply interested, and resolved to see the
adventure out, accepted the skipper's invitation to
pass the night at his cottage. After taking
some refreshment, they strolled out again upon
the shore and quay. The mist was clearing,
and the moon had risen. My uncle asked
what his host imagined Sinclair proposed to
do, expressing his doubts whether he intended
anything but bravado.

Edmonston was not so sure of that. Ruffian
as he was, with a spice of malice that made him
the terror and aversion of the village, Sinclair
was a perfect dare-devil in personal courage,
and, his blood being now up, he was certain, if
he returned at all, to bring back tidings of some
description. The man's unlucky passion for
Leasha (who was betrothed, Edmonston said,
to his nephew) had been the cause of much
uneasiness to the friends of both. "God pardon
me if I misjudge the man," concluded Edmonston;
"but if ever murder looked out of man's
eye, it did from his when Peter jumped into his
boat to-day."

By eleven o'clock the haze had lifted so much
that the skipper proposed to ascend the height,
and try if anything could be seen. The night
was still as death; and, as they rose the hill,
the soft rippling murmur of the sea barely
reached their ears.

"I never knew him so quiet as this,"
remarked Edmonston; "I take it, he's——"

Before he could finish, a sound, compounded
of rush and roar, so fearful and appalling that
it can be likened to nothing but the sudden
bursting of a dam which confined a pent-up sea,
swooped from seaward, and seemed to shake the
very rock on which they stood. There was a
bellow of cavernous thunder, which seemed to
reverberate through the distant isles; and, far
out, a broad white curtain appeared to rise,
blend with the dispersing fog. and move
majestically towards the land.

"It's the surf! 'He has sounded,'" whispered
Edmonston. "Listen—now!"

Perfect silence had succeeded the tumultuous
roar, and again they heard nothing but the
sough of the sea lapping the crags below. But,
after the lapse of perhaps a minute, the hush
was invaded by a soft sibilating murmur,
increasing to a mighty roar; and, with a crash
like thunder, a billow—fifteen feet in height—
fell headlong upon the rocky shore. It was
followed by two or three more, each smaller
than the preceding; and once again silence
resumed her sway.

At daybreak it was seen that the terrible
Sentinel of Scalloway had returned to his fathomless
deeps.

And where was Sinclair? He was seen no
more; but, weeks afterwards, a home-bound
boat, passing near the spot where the monster
had lain, nearly came in contact with some
floating wreck. From certain singular appearances,
some of which seemed to indicate that
the wreck had been but recently released from
the bottom, the crew were induced to take it in
tow, and bring it into port. There it was at
once identified as the forward portion of Gilbert
Sinclair's boat, torn—or as Scalloway men insist
to this day, bitten—clean off, just forward of
the mast; the grooves of one colossal tooth—
the size of a tree—being distinctly visible!

There are persons, it is true, who have
endeavoured to lessen the mysterious interest of
my uncle's story, by suggesting a different
explanation; hinting, for example, that the object
might have been composed of nothing more
extraordinary than the entangled hulls of two
large vessels, wrecked in collision; and that
Sinclair, suspecting this, and endeavouring to
reduce them to manageable proportions through
the agency of gunpowder, had destroyed
himself with them.

But, if so, where were the portions of wreck?
We have also the support of no less a person
than the author of Waverley, who, in his notes
to the Pirate, mentions the incident, and its
effect upon the hardy seamen of Scalloway;
while my uncle himself, at a subsequent visit
to that port, smoked a pipe with Mr. Magnus
in the very boat—then converted into an arbour
—that had been bitten in two by the sea-
monster. So that, with him, I frankly ask—if it
was not a kraken—What was it?

Just published,
THE FOURTEENTH VOLUME,
Price 5s. 6d., bound in cloth.