"Take it back—back, wench, into the chest again. It was not for thee, hussy. A prize I fished up with the nets to-day."
"From the sea. Oh me! it is—it is unholy spoil. It has been dragged from some wreck. Cast it again to the greedy waters. They yield not their prey without a perilous struggle," said the girl.
The fisherman was silent. He looked thoughtful and disturbed, while Katherine went back to put the treasure into its hiding-place.
"I wonder what that whispering could be?" thought the maiden, as she opened the old chest. Ere the lid was pulled down, she cast one look at the beautiful but forbidden intruder, and she was sure—but imagination is a potent wizard, and works marvellously—else she was sure that a slight movement was visible beneath the casket. She flung down the lid in great terror; pale and trembling, she sprang out of the room, and sat down silent and alarmed. Again the mysterious whispers were audible in the momentary pauses of the blast.
"Save us!" said the elder female; "I hear it again."
Bounce flew open the door of the bed-chamber, and—in stalked their dumb assistant, as though he had chosen this mode of ingress, through the window of the sleeping-room, rather than through the house-door.
"Plague take thee! Where hast thou been?" said the old woman, partly relieved from her terrors. Yet was the whispering precisely as incomprehensible as before. The dumb menial that stood before her was obviously incapable even of this act of incipient speech.
"Where hast thou been, Dick?" inquired Grimes, seriously. But the former pointed towards the beach.
"How long hast thou been yonder?—in the chamber, I mean."
Dick here fell into one of his ordinary fits of abstraction, from which neither menace nor entreaty could arouse him. As the old man turned from the window he saw a blaze of light flashing suddenly upon the wall. The yard was filled with smoke. Rushing forth, the inmates found the barn thatch on fire, kindled probably by the lightning. The rain prevented it from extending with much rapidity; and Grimes, mounting on the roof, soon extinguished the burning materials before much damage had been the result. Misfortunes verily seemed to crowd upon each other; and that unlucky casket, doubtless, was the cause. When the old man, with his dame, returned into the house, Katherine was nowhere to be found. The "Dummy," too, was unaccountably absent. Anxious and wondering, they awaited, hoping for their appearance at dinner; but their meal was cheerless and unvisited. Evening came, serene, deceitful as ever—but their child did not return. They went out to make inquiries, but could find no clue to aid them in the search. Katherine had never stayed from home so late. The parents were nigh distracted. There was evidently some connection between the disappearance of their servant and her own absence. Fearful surmises ensued. Suspicion strengthened into certainty. The casket was forgotten in this fearful distress; and, after a fruitless search, they were forced to return.