At length she rose and went forward, till she stood as near as she dared to the very point. The cataracts of foam that the sea threw over the ridge, the howl and roar of wind and water, and the gross darkness, prevented her approaching it within fifty yards; so she stood by a pile of wood that was left on the down for the purpose of being kindled, if a beacon should at any time be needed.

Presently, there was a flash of light out at sea, and then the heavy boom of a gun rolled over the waters. At that moment the captain had given himself over for lost: he was driven out of his course; he had seen breakers with the last glimmer of light, and he could, in the crazy state of his vessel, do little but run before the wind. One lighthouse, one beacon, would have been all in all to him.

Kate could not tell this; but she had sense enough to know that a beacon on that point must be of the greatest benefit to any ship out of her course, and ignorant of her reckoning.

"They may kill me if they like," she said; "but I will do it."

Hastily stripping off the covering of furze

with which the beacon was kept dry, she opened the lantern carefully, lest some gust should put out the flame; and, thrusting in a wisp, set the pile alight. At first it seemed doubtful whether it would burn; but by degrees the fire glowed in the inside, the smoke poured out, one tongue of flame shot up after another, and the whole was in a blaze. Marvellously grand was the ochre-like glare that fell on the bleak down, and on the pillars of foam that dashed up above its ridge. curlew sailed screaming by it; the sheltered sea to leeward glowed like molten iron; the wind tossed and twisted the blaze into a spire of smoke and flame; and the low, rushing clouds over head reflected the glow.

The

But none of these things did Kate notice. She knew that the wreckers would be watching, and would see what was done; and then, -what might she not expect from their revenge?

Still, however, she tended the fire; and in an hour it began to burn low. She knew not that in that hour the fate of the vessel was decided; and that now, instead of running on

shore, it was bounding up the channel towards Cardiff. And they that were saved never knew to whom they owed their lives, and that she won their safety for them at the price of her own.

Furious at

Yes; at the price of her own. what they then thought the carelessness of their messenger, the landlord and two or three of the wreckers hastened to the Head, and forcing their way with some difficulty over the causeway of sand, over which the tide was then pouring in, they hurried to the point.

The

What followed was then not known. men returned, and said that Kate must have fallen over the cliff, for that nowhere could she be found.

Some days after, her body was washed on shore. It was buried at once; and though people did talk a little about a black, deep gash on the forehead, it was but a poor servant girl at an inn, and no further inquiry was made.

But many, many years after, an old man was dying of putrid fever in Caermarthen gaol.

"There's something on his mind, sir,” said the gaoler to the Chaplain, as they stood by the heap of straw, which was the bed of many a prisoner in those times; "he's constantly talking about some one he calls Kate."

"Kate! Kate!" cried the dying man, catching at the word. "Mercy, my Lord Judge! mercy, for God's sake! it was not I! it was Bill Williams; he hit her with the boathook: I only helped to throw her over. Mercy, my Lord Judge! A long day, then, for God's sake! a long day!"

That is all that I can tell you of the end of poor Kate's course; for this is all that was ever known. But of one thing I am sure, that the spirit which on that cold night left the poor body to be battered by the rocks, and tossed by the sea, was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. And perhaps that fearful death was the only way by which Kate could attain to a crown, that the temptations of her future life would have snatched from her head. If so, O how unspeakably blessed that terror, that anguish, and that murder!—or may I not even say, that martyrdom?