“‘Ay, sir,’ says Donald; ‘I’m just thinkin’ it will be the West Indies.’

“‘You’re right there, Donald, the West Indies it is,’ says Jock.  ‘See, yonder’s the black folk sittin’ waitin’ for us!’ and he pointed to the cormorants perched on the rocks.

“So the brig was hauled round, and when she was near inshore a pilot boat cam oot to them.  Jock hailed the pilot:  ’What land is that?’ he cried.

“‘It’s the Mainland!’ sings out the pilot.

“‘What! the mainland o’ America?’ asks Jock, thinkin’ he had missed the Indies.

“‘No, ye duffer, the Mainland o’ Orkney, to be sure,’ says the pilot.  ‘What other Mainland is there?’”

As I sat on my low stool by the fire, my mother and Jessie being in the inner room, I took the viking’s charm from my pocket and examined it.  Captain Gordon had lighted his pipe, and when my father’s anecdote was finished he said: 

“Now, Halcro, my lad, lay aft here and let us have another look at that magic stone of yours.”

And then, as I handed it to him, he proceeded to tell my father of our discovery of the treasure.

The two men discussed the probable value of what we had found, and I felt some disappointment in their estimate of what the dominie might be able to sell the relics for.

“It is very good to find these things,” said my father, blowing a mist of tobacco smoke from amidst his beard.  “But what use are they, whatever?  Nae use ava!  The dominie might send them to the museum folk at Edinburgh, and he would get mebbe a pickle pounds for them—­hardly enough for the lads to buy an auld boat wi’.  I wouldna be bothered wi’ the things.”

“What was it the old woman was saying about this stone, though, Halcro?” asked the captain.

I repeated what Grace Drever told me—­how the stone might protect me from accident and from the monsters of the sea; from the kraken and the kelpie, the warlocks and the wirracows; and how, having the charm at my neck, I need never fear climbing a cliff or entering upon the most dangerous adventure.

“And do you believe all this, my lad?” asked Captain Gordon, taking his pipe from his lips and addressing me.

“Well,” I returned, with an earnestness that must have shown that I had not the smallest doubt upon the matter, “auld Grace Drever said it was ‘as true as death,’ and the dominie did not deny that it was ‘just possible.’  What for should I not believe it? and what for would the stone be bound with the gold ring and buried with the other gear if it were not of some value beyond ordinary?”

“Och! but I dinna doot there will be something in the stone,” said my father, who, at the mention of the dominie’s belief, cast away all questioning.  “And it will not be the first time I have heard of such cantrips.”

And he told us of a man named Willie Reoch, a fisherman, who was preserved from the great Bore of Papa Westray in some such way.  Willie Reoch and three other fishers were away at the saith fishing, and when their boat was driven by the wind near to the Bore, they were drawn under by the whirling current and swamped.  Reoch had round his neck a charm which Bessie Millie, the witch, had given to him, and so was the only one saved.