Morning came at last, and with the first grey light the storm had spent its fury.  By degrees my mother had grown calmer, and was now sleeping peacefully upon her bed, worn out with the passion of her terror.  I had long ago dressed; but even had I wished to sleep again, curiosity to know the meaning of that awful cry would have been too strong for me.  So, as soon as I saw that my mother was asleep, I took my boots in my hand and crept downstairs.  The kitchen looked so ghostly in the dim light, that I had almost resolved to give up my plan and go back, but reflected that it behoved me to play the man, if only to be able to cheer mother when I came back.  So, albeit with my heart in my mouth, I drew back the bolt—­that surely, for all my care, never creaked so loudly before or since—­and stepped out into the cool air.  The fresh breeze that smote my cheeks as I sat down outside to put on my boots brought me back to the everyday world—­a world that seemed to make the events of the night unreal and baseless, so that I had, with boyish elasticity of temper, almost forgotten all fear as I began to descend the cliff towards Ready-Money Cove.

Before I go any further, it will be necessary to describe in a few words that part of the coast which is the scene of my story.  Lantrig, as I have said, looks down upon Ready-Money Cove from the summit of Pedn-glas, its northern arm.  The cove itself is narrow, running in between two scarred and rugged walls of serpentine, and terminating in a little beach of whitest sand beneath a frowning and precipitous cliff.  It is easy to see its value in the eyes of smugglers, for not only is the cove difficult of observation from the sea, by reason of its straitness and the protection of its projecting arms, but the height and abruptness of its cliffs also give it seclusion from the land side.  For Pedn-glas on the north rises sheer from the sea, sloping downwards a little as it runs in to join the mainland, but only enough to admit of a rough and winding path at its inmost point, while to the south the cove is guarded by a strange mass of rock that demands a somewhat longer description.

For some distance the cliff ran out as on the north side, but, suddenly breaking off as if cleft by some gigantic stroke, left a gloomy column of rock, attached to it only by an isthmus that stood some six or seven feet above high-water mark.  This separate mass went by the name of Dead Man’s Rock—­a name dark and dreadful enough, but in its derivation innocent, having been but Dodmen, or “the stony headland,” until common speech perverted it.  For this reason I suppose I ought not to call it Dead Man’s Rock, the “Rock” being superfluous, but I give it the name by which it has always been known, being to a certain extent suspicious of those antiquarian gentlemen that sometimes, in their eagerness to restore a name, would deface a tradition.