A loud, unearthly peal of laughter was heard above the noise of the people and the tumult of the storm. Every one turned to look for Danny. He had gone. The next moment he was seen at the water's edge pushing off the dingy of the lugger. He leaped into it and picked up an oar. But the ebbing tide needed no such help. It caught the boat and carried it away on a huge billow white with foam. In a minute it was riding far out into the dark void beyond.
Then Mona remembered Danny's strange words two days ago, "I think at whiles I'd like to die in a big sea like that."
Next day—Christmas Day—when the bleared sun was sinking over the western bar of the deep lone sea, and Danny's gorse fire on the cliff-head was smouldering out, a boat was washed ashore in the Poolvash—empty, capsized. It was the dingy of the Ben-my-Chree.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THREE YEARS AFTER.
One scene more.
It was the morning of a summer's day. The sunshine danced bewitchingly over the sea, that lay drowsily under the wide vault of a blue sky. Lambent, languid, white, earth and air slept together.
A soothing and dreamy haze rested on the little town of Peel.
Brighter than the sunshine, fresher than the salt breath of the sea, a little girl of eight tripped over the paved
