death the witness had seen with his own eyes. A third man remembered that Kisseck had met a cat when going home on Oie houiney (Hallow–eve). And if these prognostications had counted for little, there was the remaining and awful fact that on New–year's–eve Bridget Kisseck had raked the fire on going to bed, and spread the ashes on the floor with the tongs, and next morning had found that print of a foot pointing toward the door which was the certain forewarning of death in the household within a year.
They were doubling the Point of Ayre, with no clear purpose before them, and with some misgivings as to whether they had done wisely in setting out to sea at all, when the wind fell to a dead calm. Then through the silence and darkness they heard large drops of rain fall on the deck. Presently there came a torrent, which lasted nearly an hour. The men turned in; only Danny and the body remained on deck. Still the lad could see the glow of the fire on the cliff, which was now miles away. When the rain ceased, the darkness, which had been all but palpable, lifted away, and the stars came out. Toward three in the morning the moon rose, but it was soon concealed by a dense black turret cloud that reared itself upward from the horizon. All this time the fishing-boat lay motionless, with only the lap of the waters heard about her.
The stars died off, the darkness came again, and then, far on in the night, the first gray streaks stretching along the east foretold the dawn. Over the confines of another night the soft daylight was breaking, but more utterly lonely, more void, more full of dread and foreboding,
