’I don’t wonder that these Irish poets dreamed of Isles of Paradise out there: 

   ’Lands undiscoverable in the unheard-of West,
   Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea
   Runs without wind for ever.’

thought Merton.  ’Chicago is the realisation of their dream.  Hullo, there are the lights of a big steamer, and a very low one behind it!  Queer craft!’

Merton watched the lights that crossed the sea, when either the haze deepened or the fainter light on the smaller vessel vanished, and the larger ship steamed on in a southerly direction.  ‘Magic boat of Bran!’ thought Merton.  He turned and entered the staircase to go back to his room.  There was a lift, of course, but, equally of course, there was nobody to manage it.  Merton, who had a lighted bedroom-candle in his hand, descended the spiral staircase; at a turning he thought he saw, ‘with the tail of his eye,’ a plaid, draping a tall figure of a Highlander, disappear round the corner.  Nobody in the castle wore the kilt except the piper, and he had not rooms in the observatory.  Merton ran down as fast as he could, but he did not catch another view of the plaid and its wearer, or hear any footsteps.  He went to the bottom of the staircase, opened the outer door, and looked forth.  Nobody!  The electric light from the open door of his own room blazed across the landing on his return.  All was perfectly still, and Merton remembered that he had not heard the footsteps of the appearance.  ‘Was it Eachain?’ he asked himself.  ‘Do I sleep, do I dream?’

He went back to bed and slumbered uneasily.  He seemed to be awake in his room, in broad light, and to hear a slow drip, drip, on the floor.  He looked up; the roof was stained with a great dark splash of a crimson hue.  He got out of bed, and touched the wet spot on the floor under the blotch on the ceiling.

His fingers were reddened with blood!  He woke at the horror of it:  found himself in bed in the dark, pressed an electric knob, and looked at the ceiling.  It was dry and white.  ’I certainly have been smoking too much lately,’ thought Merton, and, switching off the light, he slumbered again, so soundly that he did not hear the piper playing round the house, or the man who brought his clothes and hot water, or the gong for breakfast.

When he did wake, he was surprised at the lateness of the hour, and dressed as rapidly as possible.  ’I wonder if I was dreaming when I thought that I went out on the roof, and saw mountains and marvels,’ said Merton to himself.  ‘A queer thing, the human mind,’ he reflected sagely.  It occurred to him to enter the smoking-room on his way downstairs.  He routed two maids who perhaps had slept too late, and were hurriedly making the room tidy.  The sun was beating in at the window, and Merton noticed some tiny glittering points of white metallic light on the carpet near the new telegraphic apparatus.  ’I don’t believe these