For an instant, on the top of the opposite
rock he could see the bald back of the head and the Glengarry cap with
the immense eagle’s feather. As he staggered back his foot slipped, and
he began to slide down towards the sand between the two rocks. He took
no concern as to falling, for the sand was really only a few feet below
him, and his mind was occupied with the figure or simulacrum of
himself, which had already disappeared. As the easiest way of reaching
_terra firma_ he prepared to jump the remainder of the distance. All
this had taken but a second, but the brain works quickly, and even as
he gathered himself for the spring he saw the sand below him lying so
marbly level shake and shiver in an odd way. A sudden fear overcame
him; his knees failed, and instead of jumping he slid miserably down
the rock, scratching his bare legs as he went. His feet touched the
sand—went through it like water—and he was down below his knees before
he realised that he was in a quicksand. Wildly he grasped at the rock
to keep himself from sinking further, and fortunately there was a
jutting spur or edge which he was able to grasp instinctively. To this
he clung in grim desperation. He tried to shout, but his breath would
not come, till after a great effort his voice rang out. Again he
shouted, and it seemed as if the sound of his own voice gave him new
courage, for he was able to hold on to the rock for a longer time than
he thought possible—though he held on only in blind desperation. He
was, however, beginning to find his grasp weakening, when, joy of joys! his shout was answered by a rough voice from just above him. “God be thankit, I’m nae too late!” and a fisherman with great
thigh-boots came hurriedly climbing over the rock. In an instant he
recognised the gravity of the danger, and with a cheering “Haud fast,
mon! I’m comin’!” scrambled down till he found a firm foothold. Then
with one strong hand holding the rock above, he leaned down, and
catching Markam’s wrist, called out to him, “Haud to me, mon! Haud to
me wi’ ither hond!”

Then he lent his great strength, and with a steady, sturdy pull,
dragged him out of the hungry quicksand and placed him safe upon the
rock. Hardly giving him time to draw breath, he pulled and pushed
him—never letting him go for an instant—over the rock into the firm
sand beyond it, and finally deposited him, still shaking from the
magnitude of his danger, high upon the beach. Then he began to speak:

“Mon! but I was just in time. If I had no laucht at yon foolish lads
and begun to rin at the first you’d a bin sinkin’ doon to the bowels o’
the airth be the noo! Wully Beagrie thocht you was a ghaist, and Tom
MacPhail swore ye was only like a goblin on a puddick-steel! ‘Na!’ said
I. ‘Yon’s but the daft Englishman—the loony that had escapit frae the
waxwarks.’ I was thinkin’ that bein’ strange and silly—if not a
whole-made feel—ye’d no ken the ways o’ the quicksan’! I shouted till
warn ye, and then ran to drag ye aff, if need be. But God be thankit,
be ye fule or only half-daft wi’ yer vanity, that I was no that late!”
and he reverently lifted his cap as he spoke. Mr. Markam was deeply touched and thankful for his escape from a
horrible death; but the sting of the charge of vanity thus made once
more against him came through his humility. He was about to reply
angrily, when suddenly a great awe fell upon him as he remembered the
warning words of the half-crazy letter-carrier: “Meet thyself face to
face, and repent ere the quicksand shall swallow thee!”

Here, too, he remembered the image of himself that he had seen and the
sudden danger from the deadly quicksand that had followed. He was
silent a full minute, and then said:

“My good fellow, I owe you my life!”

The answer came with reverence from the hardy fisherman, “Na! Na! Ye
owe that to God; but, as for me, I’m only too glad till be the humble
instrument o’ His mercy.”

“But you will let me thank you,” said Mr. Markam, taking both the great
hands of his deliverer in his and holding them tight. “My heart is too
full as yet, and my nerves are too much shaken to let me say much; but,
believe me, I am very, very grateful!” It was quite evident that the
poor old fellow was deeply touched, for the tears were running down his
cheeks. The fisherman said, with a rough but true courtesy:

“Ay, sir! thank me and ye will—if it’ll do yer poor heart good. An’ I’m
thinking that if it were me I’d be thankful too. But, sir, as for me I
need no thanks. I am glad, so I am!”

That Arthur Fernlee Markam was really thankful and grateful was shown
practically later on. Within a week’s time there sailed into Port
Crooken the finest fishing smack that had ever been seen in the harbour
of Peterhead. She was fully found with sails and gear of all kinds, and
with nets of the best. Her master and men went away by the coach, after
having left with the salmon-fisher’s wife the papers which made her
over to him. As Mr. Markam and the salmon-fisher walked together along the shore the
former asked his companion not to mention the fact that he had been in
such imminent danger, for that it would only distress his dear wife and
children. He said that he would warn them all of the quicksand, and for
that purpose he, then and there, asked questions about it till he felt
that his information on the subject was complete. Before they parted he
asked his companion if he had happened to see a second figure, dressed
like himself on the other rock as he had approached to succour him. “Na! Na!” came the answer, “there is nae sic another fule in these
parts. Nor has there been since the time o’ Jamie Fleeman—him that was
fule to the Laird o’ Udny. Why, mon! sic a heathenish dress as ye have
on till ye has nae been seen in these pairts within the memory o’ mon. An’ I’m thinkin’ that sic a dress never was for sittin’ on the cauld
rock, as ye done beyont. Mon! but do ye no fear the rheumatism or the
lumbagy wi’ floppin’ doon on to the cauld stanes wi’ yer bare flesh? I
was thinking that it was daft ye waur when I see ye the mornin’ doon be
the port, but it’s fule or eediot ye maun be for the like o’ thot!” Mr.
Markam did not care to argue the point, and as they were now close to
his own home he asked the salmon-fisher to have a glass of whisky—which
he did—and they parted for the night. He took good care to warn all his
family of the quicksand, telling them that he had himself been in some
danger from it. All that night he never slept. He heard the hours strike one after the
other; but try how he would he could not get to sleep. Over and over
again he went through the horrible episode of the quicksand, from the
time that Saft Tammie had broken his habitual silence to preach to him
of the sin of vanity and to warn him. The question kept ever arising in
his mind: “Am I then so vain as to be in the ranks of the foolish?” and
the answer ever came in the words of the crazy prophet: “‘Vanity of
vanities!