s below the
beach. He could bear the suspense no longer, and hoisted sail to bear
down on the schooner and warn her. But the wind was strong by this
time, driving hard off the sea and the tide ran faster than before.

Stephen Orry was now some thirty fathoms space to the north of the
broken pier, and at that point the current from across Maughold Head
meets the current going across the Mull of Galloway. Laboring in the
heavy sea he could barely fetch about, but when at last he got head
out to sea he began to drive down on the schooner at a furious speed.
He tried to run close along by her on the weather side, but before he
came within a hundred fathoms he saw that he was in the full race of
the north current, and strong seaman though he was, he could not get
near. Then he shouted, but the wind carried away his voice. He
shouted again, but the schooner gave no sign. In the darkness the
dark vessel scudded past him.

He was now like a man possessed. Fetching about he ran in before the
wind, thinking to pass the schooner on her tack. He passed her
indeed: he was shot far beyond her, shouting as he went, but again
his voice was drowned in the roar of the sea. He was almost atop of
the breakers now, yet he fetched about once more, and shouted again
and again and again. But the ship came on and on, and no one heard
the wild voice, that rang out between the dark sea and sky like the
cry of a strong swimmer in his last agony.

CHAPTER IX.

THE COMING OF JASON.

The schooner was the Peveril, homeward bound from Reykjavik to
Dublin, with a hundred tons of tallow, fifty bales of eider down, and
fifty casks of cods' and sharks' oil. Leaving the Icelandic capital
on the morning after Easter Day, with a fair wind, for the outer
Hebrides, she had run through the North Channel by the middle of the
week, and put into Whitehaven on the Friday. Next day she had stood
out over the Irish Sea for the Isle of Man, intending to lie off at
Ramsey for contraband rum. Her skipper and mate were both Englishmen,
and her crew were all Irish, except two, a Manxman and an Icelander.

The Manxman was a grizzled old sea dog, who had followed the Manx
fisheries twenty years and smuggling twenty other years, and then
turned seaman before the mast. His name was Davy Kerruish, and when
folks asked if the Methodists had got hold of him that he had
turned honest in his old age, he closed one rheumy yellow eye very
knowingly, tipped one black t