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IT was the night succeeding these events.
Darkness and storm had rushed down
simultaneously on the coast of Pembrokeshire.

The surges of St. George's Channel, lashed
to fury by the breath of a veritable hurricane,
broke in thunder on the jagged reefs and
ledges of rock jutting from the water, and
died away in the cavernous recesses beneath
the great headland near Oldport, like the
hoarse bellowing of bulls, or the dull boom of
artillery.

The coast was absolutely deserted. Scarce
a light glimmered in Oldport. On the headland,
no beacon light warned barks off the perilous
reef. The light of the blood-red moon

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alone, shining through a rift in the black
clouds, toward the east, contended with the
ebon darkness, and revealed, in their full horror,
the foam-capped reefs.

All at once a sail-boat might have been seen
darting toward land. It was a vessel of the
smallest size, and carcened terribly under the
great pressure of eanvas.

Clinging to the single mast was a man
wrapped in a dreadnought, and with his hand in
his breast. Three other men were on the bark,
but they were crouching, pale and sullen.

“We'll all go to the bottom!” said one of
the men, who seemed to be the owner of the
boat.

“You are paid!” was the gruff reply of
Wilde—for he it was who stood erect, clinging
to the mast.

“What's pay if we go down?” said the sullen
one.

“But we wont!”

“Look at that reef! Down with the helm!”

And he started to his feet.

The vessel grazed a grinning reef, scraped,
and darted on. She was a mere cork—the
winds drove her like a dry leaf of autumn over
the foaming waves.

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“If I only arrive,” muttered Wilde, “I have
my fortune here!”

And he clutched a package in his breast,—
the pocket-book containing the stolen leaf from
the register at Martigny.

“Look!” suddenly shouted the skipper of the
vessel. “There is that devilish craft following
us still!”

And he pointed to a sail-boat similar to his
own, which was darting towards them.

Wilde uttered a curse.

“I thought you had got away from her!”

“I thought so too! But there she is,—followed
us all the way from the coast of
France!”

And, knitting his brows, he muttered,—

“A sailor is on board of her! I believe I'll
throw this Englishman overboard, and strike to
the craft that's been pursuing us!”

Wilde heard the muttered words, and drew
a long knife from beneath his coat.

“Death to the man who touches me!” he
growled, with the accent and manner of a wild
animal.

“And death to the man who is running us
on these reefs to go to the bottom!”

As he spoke, the Frenchman drew a knife in

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his turn, his companions exactly imitated him,
and they rushed straight on Wilde.

It was too late.

Before they had reached him where he stood,
clinging with his left hand to the mast, a crash
like thunder was heard, the bark staggered, and
reeled backward. She had run right on a reef,
and two of the Frenchmen were hurled overboard.

As they disappeared, a single cry cut the
darkness like a steel blade. An instant afterwards
the heads were engulfed and the men
dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks.

The third Frenchman uttered a shout of rage,
and struck at Wilde.

As he did so, his foot slipped.

An instant afterwards Wilde had seized him
and hurled him into the sea.

The craft grated with harsh thunder on the
rocks, and then darted ahead.

The momentary arrest of her progress had,
however, given her pursuers time to gain upon
her.

As she drove on now, the craft following
hovered above her, on the summit of a gigantic
wave—and in the prow a man, wrapped in a
cloak, gazed eagerly toward her.

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“She struck, Captain!” said one of the
men, “and look!—again!”

In fact, the sail-boat containing Wilde, had
rushed straight on a still more dangerous
reef.

It finished her. The sharp teeth tore her
hull to shreds—she burst in two, and her mast
sunk, dragging the sail like the wing of a
wounded sea-bird. Wilde was thrown into the
water, and struck out powerfully for the strand,
now not two hundred yards distant.

“He will escape!” cried the man in the boat
in pursuit.

And without a moment's hesitation he threw
off his cloak, and plunged into the boiling
waves.

Then a tremendous contest took place between
the adversaries. On one side was enormous
strength and great skill as a a swimmer;
on the other, equal skill, if not so much
strength, and a burning resolve to reach the
man he was in pursuit of, or die.

The wind howled; the waves struck them;
the moon was blotted out; all was darkness.
Still Wilde darted on, pursued by Earle.

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