and emaciated figure had knocked at the door at midnight and demanded food.  Other story-tellers, of more historical accuracy, roundly asserted that Sir Francis himself had been little better than a pirate, and had chosen this spot to conceal quantities of ill-gotten booty, taken from neutral bottoms, and had protected his hiding-place by the orthodox means of hellish incantation and diabolic agencies.  On moonlight nights a shadowy ship was sometimes seen standing off-and-on, or when fogs encompassed sea and shore the noise of oars rising and falling in their row-locks could be heard muffled and indistinctly during the night.  Whatever foundation there might have been for these stories, it was certain that a more weird and desolate-looking spot could not have been selected for their theatre.  High hills, verdureless and enfiladed with dark canadas, cast their gaunt shadows on the tide.  During a greater portion of the day the wind, which blew furiously and incessantly, seemed possessed with a spirit of fierce disquiet and unrest.  Toward nightfall the sea-fog crept with soft step through the portals of the Golden Gate, or stole in noiseless marches down the hillside, tenderly soothing the wind-buffeted face of the cliff, until sea and sky were hid together.  At such times the populous city beyond and the nearer settlement seemed removed to an infinite distance.  An immeasurable loneliness settled upon the cliff.  The creaking of a windlass, or the monotonous chant of sailors on some unseen, outlying ship, came faint and far, and full of mystic suggestion.

About a year ago a well-to-do middle-aged broker of San Francisco found himself at nightfall the sole occupant of a “plunger,” encompassed in a dense fog, and drifting toward the Golden Gate.  This unexpected termination of an afternoon’s sail was partly attributable to his want of nautical skill, and partly to the effect of his usually sanguine nature.  Having given up the guidance of his boat to the wind and tide, he had trusted too implicitly for that reaction which his business experience assured him was certain to occur in all affairs, aquatic as well as terrestrial.  “The tide will turn soon,” said the broker, confidently, “or something will happen.”  He had scarcely settled himself back again in the stern-sheets, before the bow of the plunger, obeying some mysterious impulse, veered slowly around and a dark object loomed up before him.  A gentle eddy carried the boat further in shore, until at last it was completely embayed under the lee of a rocky point now faintly discernible through the fog.  He looked around him in the vain hope of recognizing some familiar headland.  The tops of the high hills which rose on either side were hidden in the fog.  As the boat swung around, he succeeded in fastening a line to the rocks, and sat down again with a feeling of renewed confidence and security.