Prester John | Page 6

somehow shut in with this
unknown being in a strange union. What kind of errand had brought
this interloper into our territory? For a wonder I was less afraid than
curious. I wanted to get to the heart of the matter, and to discover what
the man was up to with his fire and his circles.
The same thought must have been in Archie's head, for he dropped on
his belly and began to crawl softly seawards. I followed, and Tam, with
sundry complaints, crept after my heels. Between the cliffs and the fire
lay some sixty yards of debris and boulders above the level of all but
the high spring tides. Beyond lay a string of seaweedy pools and then
the hard sands of the burnfoot. There was excellent cover among the
big stones, and apart from the distance and the dim light, the man by
the fire was too preoccupied in his task to keep much look-out towards
the land. I remember thinking he had chosen his place well, for save
from the sea he could not be seen. The cliffs are so undercut that unless
a watcher on the coast were on their extreme edge he would not see the
burnfoot sands.
Archie, the skilled tracker, was the one who all but betrayed us. His
knee slipped on the seaweed, and he rolled off a boulder, bringing
down with him a clatter of small stones. We lay as still as mice, in
terror lest the man should have heard the noise and have come to look
for the cause. By-and-by when I ventured to raise my head above a
flat-topped stone I saw that he was undisturbed. The fire still burned,
and he was pacing round it. On the edge of the pools was an outcrop of
red sandstone much fissured by the sea. Here was an excellent vantage-
ground, and all three of us curled behind it, with our eyes just over the
edge. The man was not twenty yards off, and I could see clearly what
manner of fellow he was. For one thing he was huge of size, or so he
seemed to me in the half-light. He wore nothing but a shirt and trousers,
and I could hear by the flap of his feet on the sand that he was barefoot.
Suddenly Tam Dyke gave a gasp of astonishment. 'Gosh, it's the black

minister!' he said.
It was indeed a black man, as we saw when the moon came out of a
cloud. His head was on his breast, and he walked round the fire with
measured, regular steps. At intervals he would stop and raise both
hands to the sky, and bend his body in the direction of the moon. But
he never uttered a word.
'It's magic,' said Archie. 'He's going to raise Satan. We must bide here
and see what happens, for he'll grip us if we try to go back. The moon's
ower high.'
The procession continued as if to some slow music. I had been in no
fear of the adventure back there by our cave; but now that I saw the
thing from close at hand, my courage began to ebb. There was
something desperately uncanny about this great negro, who had shed
his clerical garments, and was now practising some strange magic alone
by the sea. I had no doubt it was the black art, for there was that in the
air and the scene which spelled the unlawful. As we watched, the
circles stopped, and the man threw something on the fire. A thick
smoke rose of which we could feel the aromatic scent, and when it was
gone the flame burned with a silvery blueness like moonlight. Still no
sound came from the minister, but he took something from his belt, and
began to make odd markings in the sand between the inner circle and
the fire. As he turned, the moon gleamed on the implement, and we saw
it was a great knife.
We were now scared in real earnest. Here were we, three boys, at night
in a lonely place a few yards from a savage with a knife. The adventure
was far past my liking, and even the intrepid Archie was having qualms,
if I could judge from his set face. As for Tam, his teeth were chattering
like a threshing-mill.
Suddenly I felt something soft and warm on the rock at my right hand. I
felt again, and, lo! it was the man's clothes. There were his boots and
socks, his minister's coat and his minister's hat.
This made the predicament worse, for if we waited till he finished his

rites we should for certain be found by him. At the same time, to return
over the boulders in the bright moonlight