“Get up, you fool!” said Edmund Airey, catching the native by the shoulder. “Don’t you know as well as I do that a boat with someone aboard is adrift in the mist?”
“Oh, I know that you don’t believe in anything.” said Brian.
“I believe in your unlimited laziness and superstition,” said Edmund. “I’m very sorry, my dear Lady Innisfail, to interfere with your entertainment, but it’s perfectly clear to me that someone is in distress at the foot of the cliffs.”
“How can you be so horrid—so commonplace?” said Lady Innisfail.
“He is one of the modern iconoclasts,” said another of the group. “He would fling down our most cherished beliefs. He told me that he considered Madame Blavatsky a swindler.”
“Dear Mr. Airey,” said Miss Stafford, who was becoming less timid as the wail from the sea had not been repeated. “Dear Mr. Airey, let us entreat of you to leave us our Banshee whatever you may take from us.”
“There are some things in heaven and earth that refuse to be governed by a phrase,” sneered Mr. Durdan.
“Mules and the members of the Opposition are among them,” said Edmund, preparing to descend the cliffs by the zig-zag track.
He had scarcely disappeared in the mist when there was a shriek from Miss Stafford, and pointing down the track with a gesture, which for expressiveness, she had never surpassed in the most powerful of her recitations, she flung herself into Lady Innisfail’s arms.
“Great heavens!” cried Lady Innisfail. “It is the White Lady herself’!”