“Yet safe enough for a sailor,” laughed the captain, stepping out.

“Oh, papa, let me go too, please do!” pleaded Lulu.

“Why should you care to?” asked her father.

“To see the prospect, papa; oh, do let me! there can’t be any danger with you to hold me tight.”

For answer he leaned down and helped her up the step, then led her slowly round, giving her time to take in all the beauties of the scene, taking care of Max too, who was slowly following.

“I presume you are a little careful whom you allow to make that round?” the captain observed inquiringly to the keeper when again they stood inside.

“Yes, and we have never had an accident; but I don’t know but there was a narrow escape from it the other day.

“Of course crowds of people come here almost every day while summer visitors are on the island, and we can’t always judge what kind they are; but we know it is not an uncommon thing for people standing on the brink of a precipice or any height to feel an uncontrollable inclination to throw themselves down it, and therefore we are on the watch.

“Well, the other day I let a strange woman out there, but presently when I saw her looking down over the edge and heard her mutter to herself, ‘Shall I know him when I see him? shall I know him when I see him?’ I pulled her inside in a hurry.”

“You thought she was deranged and about to commit suicide by precipitating herself to the ground?” Edward said inquiringly.

“Exactly, sir,” returned the keeper.

All of their number who wished to do so having visited the top of the tower, our party prepared to leave.

“Are you going to walk back, papa?  Mayn’t I go with you?” pleaded Grace.

“No, daughter, we must not try your strength too far,” he said, lifting her into the carriage where Grandma Elsie and Violet were already seated.  “I am going on a mile further to Sachacha Pond, ladies,” he remarked; “will you drive there, or directly home?”

“There, if there is time to go and return before the bathing hour,” they answered.

“Quite.  I think,” he replied, and the carriage moved on, he with Max and Lulu, and several of the young gentlemen of the company following on foot.

Sachacha Pond they found to be a pretty sheet of water only slightly salt, a mile long and three quarters of a mile wide, separated from the ocean by a long narrow strip of sandy beach.  No stream enters it, but it is the reservoir of the rainfall from the low-lying hills sloping down to its shores.

Quidnet—­a hamlet of perhaps a half dozen houses—­stands on its banks.

It is to this pond people go to fish for perch; calling it fresh-water fishing; here too they “bob” for eels.

Our party had not come to fish this time, yet had an errand aside from a desire to see the spot—­namely, to make arrangements for going sharking the next day.