nking, no balustrade of any kind existing to keep
the unwary from tumbling off. At the water level the piles were eaten
away by the action of the sea to about the size of a man's wrist, and at
every fresh influx the whole structure trembled like a spider's web. In
this lay the danger of making fast, for a strong pull from a headfast
rope might drag the erection completely over. Flower arrived at the end,
where a lantern hung.

'Spruce ahoy!' he blared through the speaking trumpet two or three times.

There seemed to be a reply of some sort from the steamer.

'Tuesday's gale hev loosened the pier, Cap'n Ounce; the bollards be too
weak to make fast to: must land in boats if ye will land, but dangerous;
yer wife is out of danger, and 'tis a boy-y-y-y!'

Ethelberta and Picotee were at this time standing on the beach a hundred
and fifty yards off. Whether or not the master of the steamer received
the information volunteered by Flower, the two girls saw the triangle of
lamps get narrow at its base, reduce themselves to two in a vertical
line, then to one, then to darkness. The Spruce had turned her head from
Knollsea.

'They have gone back, and I shall not have my wedding things after all!'
said Ethelberta. 'Well, I must do without them.'

'You see, 'twas best to play sure,' said Flower to his comrades, in a
tone of complacency. 'They might have been able to do it, but 'twas
risky. The shop-folk be out of stock, I hear, and the visiting lady up
the hill is terribly in want of clothes, so 'tis said. But what's that?
Ounce ought to have put back afore.'

Then the lantern which hung at the end of the jetty was taken down, and
the darkness enfolded all around from view. The bay became nothing but a
voice, the foam an occasional touch upon the face, the Spruce an
imagination, the pier a memory. Everything lessened upon the senses but
one; that was the wind. It mauled their persons like a hand, and caused
every scrap of their raiment to tug westward. To stand with the face to
sea brought semi-suffocation, from the intense pressure of air.

The boatmen retired to their position under the wall, to lounge again in
silence. Conversation was not considered necessary: their sense of each
other's presence formed a kind of conversation. Meanwhile Picotee and
Ethelberta went up the hill.

'If your wedding were going to be a public one, what a misfortune this
delay of the packages would be,' said Picotee.

'Yes,' re