There my gentleman still lay floundering and flapping, like an alderman fanning himself on a July morning.

"Doubtless," soliloquised Ramsay, "if that fellow knows how heavy he is, he must be lying there laughing at me— a sort of old man of the sea; but I'll soon show him the dominion of man's power as well as appetite. Poor wretch! I'm sorry that fate forces me to it, but sith 'twill no better be, my most merciful part is to ease him of his life as speedily as possible, and, by letting him bleed to death, here, I get rid of so much additional weight, and the chance of hurting the poor animal in its removal."

A single stroke of a sharpe knife divided both jugular and carotid; and while the vital current flowed, Ramsay returned once more to the wood. Having cut a large strong bough, he interlaced the middle of it with several smaller cross branches, and then dragged it to where the fainting turtle was giving forth its last vital drops.

By the time that the creature was firmly secured to this new style of funeral car, it was beyond all further pain. But Herbert would have declared the best part of it was wasted; for the seamen, with a taste one has little wish to comprehend, drink the blood of the turtle with avidity, esteeming it by far the choicest delicacy, and declaring its taste to be that precisely of new sweet milk.

Having placed the dead luxury, the flat side downwards, on his rustic drag, the hint of which Ramsay had borrowed from the use to which the beaver puts its tail, he put the large end of the bough over his left shoulder, and seizing it with both hands, thus, in a manner comparatively easy, dragged Hector to the very gates of Troy.

Many a rude bump, however, did the poor deceased sustain in going, though Ramsay was as careful over him as possible, and the interlacing of cross boughs in the middle prevented the rocks or stones from coming in actual contact with the shell. The cause of all this precaution we shall arrive at presently.

Some space necessarily elapsed before he reached his cave, and by that time the red orb of the sun was very nearly hidden below the horizon. Casting off his yoke, which had proved very fatiguing in the long ascent, he sat down to take a little rest, and consider how the grand result-the final goal of all, the cooking of the turtle-was yet to be effected.

The rich light of the sun, now in a horizontal line, shot over the land, and flung the deepening shadows of the latter along the sea, where the wind already began to

freshen. Strange indeed that picture would have been deemed-the lonely officer perched on his hill, the sunlight striking like a gleam of fire on the dead turtle's back, and shooting away into the dark gloom that was gradually stealing over the beautiful scene of distant vale and mountain all wooded to the highest point.

"Never did I think to set such value on an old black pot!" at last ejaculated our hero, after a long and meditative silence. "Had I but that! yon fellow should soon make a mess fit for a king,-the king of Lonelee Island-God help me! Well, I fear his majesty must do without a kettle, as well as many other matters far more desirable. And which will be the best way?. To broil him will be wastful; to boil him impossible. Neither do we possess the enviable stoicism of some monarchs, to dispense with all operations of the sort. Could I not light a fire under his huge shell, and so stew him in his own sauce, as the popular saying is in the world I have left? But then will not the shell so crackle and burn with the heat as to impart not the very purest flavour to the soup? No, I think I have it!"

Once more rising, Ramsay trotted down the hill till he came to a kind of morass he had observed in passing over with his prize. On examining this more narrowly, he found, as he had hoped, an excellent spring. After quenching his thirst, he dug out from the channel of the water a quantity of the earth or mud over which it flowed, and found little difficulty in kneading this into a kind of clay; then gathering as large a quantity as he could well carry, after he had stamped it firmly together, he bore it on his shoulder to his den.

With this he again kneaded in the leaves stripped from the sledge boughs, which gave the clay a greater degree of tenacity one part with another; and finally with this compost he entirely covered the turtle, previously cutting off the head and fins, and leaving a small hole at the neck.

When the traverser of the deep was completely clothed in this aluminous coating, Ramsay took two large squareshaped stones, placed them on their edges at the distance of a foot apart, and five feet distant from the entrance to his cave, directly in front. On the edge of each stone he fixed a pat of clay; and resting on these pillars, as it were, he put the embedded turtle, which, with its back down, was supported firmly enough.

Nothing now remained but to light a fire under and round the gentleman; which was soon done, and the blaze once kindled, Ramsay continued piling on fuel till at last

the turtle was completely covered with the brands, and these extended in a semicircle round to each side of the cave, forming a very effectual cordon against any of his unknown subjects who might otherwise make of him that which he hoped to make of his turtle-some substantial meals.

While this royal blaze burnt round his territory, he marched unhurt within the flaming circle, which the steady blast of the sea-breeze blew gently inland, and taking, at the same time, in his hand the bundle of his shipmates' jackets and trousers, first strewed the earth inside with leaves, and over these disposed his slender stock of clothes in the best order that he could contrive.

A brilliant light was of course thrown into his retreat from the fire, so that, considering the means at his disposal, he was able to arrange his novel kind of cabin entirely to his satisfaction.

The reader will remember that he had already lit a bonfire within it, and the still warm ashes remaining underneath the boughs now laid down were, in a slight degree, a guard against the damp.

A large heap of unused fuel remained close at hand to answer any demand through the night, and having looked at his pistol-priming and flints, he had recourse to the steward's basket for his supper. At this meal the only article not most niggardly guarded was the water; for throughout the day he had been suffering considerably from thirst, and the discovery of the little spring at the foot of his hill produced a feeling of joy which could only be paralleled in any of our minds by the sudden discovery of a lead, a copper, or a coal mine. The supper terminated, he heaped fresh fuel on his encircling line of fire; and thankful beyond all utterance for the reprieve he had received from the most horrible of deaths, he lay down to enjoy in his dreams the pleasure of seeing one from whom he had too great reason to fear that he was for ever separated.

CHAPTER XXXI.

And beauty, still with danger hand in hand,
Roams o'er the wilds of this enchanted land.

THE morning had some time dawned when Ramsay awoke from his long and delicious sleep. Hand in hand with her to whom his heart was given, fancy had kindly led him in his slumbers through the beautiful woods and mountains which surround Loch Ard, once so familiar to him in his childhood. A thousand beautiful streams seemed slowly trickling to the loch, along meadows that emerald might be proud to resemble, or falling over the abrupt face of some many-tinted cliff, or seen glittering like some silvery snake among the groves of young oak, larch, and birch, or leaping from rock to rock, as it rushed from those lofty mountains, whose tops obscured it from the mists of heaven, or spanning with the bright and glorious arch of the cataract the romantic rocks of Lydard. The whole scene came before him as freshly as if no long years of sorrow had intervened since his last beholding it.

Eagerly, and with all the fever of the raging thirst that still remained upon him, he stooped beside a clear pool to drink, but the treacherous and limpid element shrank away, mocking the parched lips that sought its refreshing draught, though the hand that he most prized seemed to sprinkle its cooling drops upon his forehead.

Still it was a blessed vision, and when the overpowering sensations of drought at length aroused to the truth of his position, he resisted the burning craving for water that consumed him, and closing his too willing lids, endeavoured to coax back the dear but delusive dream once more.

But the thread was lost-the spell was broken. Once he was on the point of dropping off to sleep, when the sound of her voice, plain, distinct, and melodious as he had ever heard it in former days, called aloud his name. Pale, anxious, agitated, he started up-for the moment expecting to see her before him.

Eagerly he listened for a repetition of the well-remembered sound; but nothing fell upon his ear but the loud

tumultuous beating of his heart, as it throbbed within a bosom that seemed scarcely able to restrain its violence.

Starting to his feet, he sprang out upon the hill. Nothing like a human being was to be seen. Nature, like a young bride robed in white, lay in her brightest lights before him. The sun rose over the eastern sea with a glory and a splendour to which no power save that of vision could do justice. Everything seemed as still as when the first Sabbath shed its hallowing rays on the creation. The voice of the distant forest alone broke the exqusite quiet of the hour, and raised a hymn of praise and harmony to heaven.

Not even the mighty power of love could long convulse the bosom of the lonely beholder. The beauty of the view, the solemn peace of this bright dayspring, conveyed comfort to a mind that had none other to cheer or solace it save the voice of nature; and as poor Ramsay gazed around, he acknowledged that fancy had only put upon him one more cheat, which affection had been too ready to welcome.

Arming himself with his pistol and hatchet, he cut a fresh walking-staff, and took his way down to the beach, to discover some spot where he might enjoy the immediate pleasures of the bath, without those of a shark's teeth in reversion.

Engaged in this attempt, he passed the spot where, still safely secured by the fin, lay his smaller turtle; but still nothing could he find that answered exactly to the end he had in view. The scenery around him, however, was wild and attractive in the extreme; and lost in admiration of this, on he wandered, utterly forgetful of that for which he sought, and busy only in contemplating the bold forms of broken rock around him. At last, on turning a projecting point left dry by the sea, he came to a small bay, the sands of which were varied by long streaks of rock covered with dark sea-weed; from amongst these, rose up four or five gigantic and perpendicular masses of many grotesque shapes. In former times they had evidently been part of the mainland, but some convulsion having caused a sudden fall of the impending cliff, the looser parts of it had been washed away, and these monarchs of the spot remained alone to brave the fury of the tempest and the gale. One was like a vast sugar-loaf, another like the letter L, and a third like that of I-resembling somewhat crooked pillars.

Between the bases of these two last, sank down a very