[Illustration:  A GHOSTLY VISITANT.]

I knew nothing of the why or wherefore of this wonderful means of communication between two persons, but judged that in this case it happened in this wise.  My father had met with a severe accident, which he was probably afraid might have had a fatal termination, that his thoughts were intent upon me, his absent son.  As he intently thought of me, and how he should like to speak to me, he may have actually spoken the words to himself, which by some unknown means I heard apparently fall from his own lips, and in his very voice.

The words assured me of his safety, and therefore beyond taking a note of the day and the hour, I did not trouble myself much more about the curious incident.

While on this subject of the apparently supernatural, I will mention one or two other inexplicable things which occurred to me during my residence on Jethou.

One night in autumn I could not sleep, so towards dawn got up and dressed myself, as I had frequently done before, and took a walk round the island, a distance of over a mile.  This proceeding always had the effect of giving me the desired sleep upon my again wooing Morpheus.  On this particular night my mind was filled with the question, “How can I keep my fish pond always replenished with sea water?” and as I wandered on in the dark, knowing the path so well, I was concocting a new pumping device, when my steps were suddenly arrested by the word “Harry!” pronounced gently but plainly just behind me.  This woke me abruptly from my reverie, and I turned round quickly, but could see nothing but my faithful dog at my heels.  “Strange, very strange indeed,” I thought, and was about to resume my walk, but there, not four steps away, was the yawning abyss of La Creux Derrible, into which I should have walked in another second, and been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.  My life was saved, but by what?  Was it a spirit voice or some night bird that in my abstraction I fancied pronounced my name?[2] Some will say the latter, but I must maintain that it was a curious thing that this should happen at precisely the correct instant, just in time to save me from a violent death.  It was a voice, for I recognized it as that of my own love, Priscilla, who was at the moment two or three hundred miles away.  But how could she know of my danger?

It may strike the reader as strange, and it is strange, I will allow; but on another occasion my life was saved in a remarkable manner.  One afternoon late in the winter, after a heavy fall of rain, I was sitting near the brink of the granite cliff on the west side of the island, making a sketch of some rock masses in the glow of the ruddy setting sun, when “Begum” became suddenly restive, and rubbed several times with his head against my leg, looking up into my eyes at intervals.  Then he would walk away, looking round as if wanting me to follow and see something (a proceeding