to pass on their way out to sea, and
then it would be too late to put the vessel about and attempt to escape.

But all his calculations were useless, as it turned out, for in half an
hour the men at the bow shouted that there were breakers ahead, and
before the helm could be put down, they struck with such force that the
topmasts went overboard at once, and the sails, bursting their sheets
and tackling, were blown to ribbons.

Just then a gleam of moonlight struggled through the wrack of clouds,
and revealed the dark cliffs of the Forfar coast, towering high above
them. The vessel had struck on the rocks at the entrance to one of
those rugged bays with which that coast is everywhere indented.

At the first glance, the steersman knew that the doom of all on board
was fixed, for the bay was one of those which are surrounded by almost
perpendicular cliffs; and although, during calm weather, there was a
small space between the cliffs and the sea, which might be termed a
beach, yet during a storm the waves lashed with terrific fury against
the rocks, so that no human being might land there.

It chanced at the time that Captain Ogilvy, who took great delight in
visiting the cliffs in stormy weather, had gone out there for a midnight
walk with a young friend, and when the privateer struck, he was standing
on the top of the cliffs.

He knew at once that the fate of the unfortunate people on board was
almost certain, but, with his wonted energy, he did his best to prevent
the catastrophe.

"Run, lad, and fetch men, and ropes, and ladders. Alarm the whole town,
and use your legs well. Lives depend on your speed," said the captain,
in great excitement.

The lad required no second bidding. He turned and fled like a
greyhound.

The lieges of Arbroath were not slow to answer the summons. There were
neither lifeboats nor mortar-apparatus in those days, but there were the
same willing hearts and stout arms then as now, and in a marvellously
short space of time, hundreds of the able-bodied men of the town, gentle
and semple, were assembled on these wild cliffs, with torches, rope,
etcetera; in short, with all the appliances for saving life that the
philanthropy of the times had invented or discovered.

But, alas! these appliances were of no avail. The vessel went to pieces
on the outer point of rocks, and part of the wreck, with the crew
clinging to it, drifted into the bay.

The horrified people on the cliffs looked