FIRST PROSE VERSION. 33 



we discovered that our very fine cave was neither more 

 nor less than a prison. We attempted climbing round, 

 but in vain ; for the shelf from whence we had leaped 

 was unattainable, and there was no other path. " What 

 will my mother think?" said the poor little fellow 

 whom I had brought into this predicament, as he burst 

 into tears. "I would care nothing for myself but 

 my mother." The appeal was powerful, and, had he 

 not cried, I probably would ; but the sight of his tears 

 roused my pride, and, with a feeling which Roche- 

 foucault would have at once recognized as springing 

 from the master principle, I attempted to comfort him ; 

 and for the time completely forgot my own sorrow in 

 exulting, with all due sympathy, over his. Night came 

 on both dark and rainy, and we lay down together in a 

 corner of the cave. A few weeks prior, the corpse of a 

 fisherman, who had been drowned early in the preceding 

 winter, had been found on the beach below. It was 

 much gashed by the sharp rocks, and the head was 

 beaten to pieces. I had seen it at the time it was 

 carried through the streets of Cromarty to the church, 

 where in this part of the country the bodies of drowned 

 persons are commonly put until the coffin and grave be 

 prepared ; and all this night long, sleeping or waking, 

 the image of this corpse was continually before me. As 

 often as I slumbered, a mangled headless thing would 

 come stalking into the cave and attempt striking me, 

 when I would awaken with a start, cling to my com- 

 panion, and hide my face in his breast. About one 

 o'clock in the morning we were relieved by two boats, 

 which our friends, who had spent the early part of the 

 night in searching for us in the woods above, had fitted 

 out to try along the shore for our bodies ; they having 



VOL. I. 3 



