out to sit
for a while on the summit of the Flagstaff Rock. When she arrived she
found there a little group anxiously discussing the weather. The sea
was calm and the sun bright, but across the sea were strange lines of
darkness and light, and close in to shore the rocks were fringed with
foam, which spread out in great white curves and circles as the
currents drifted. The wind had backed, and came in sharp, cold puffs.
The blow-hole, which ran under the Flagstaff Rock, from the rocky bay
without to the harbour within, was booming at intervals, and the
seagulls were screaming ceaselessly as they wheeled about the entrance
of the port.

'It looks bad,' she heard an old fisherman say to the coastguard. 'I
seen it just like this once before, when the East Indiaman
_Coromandel_ went to pieces in Dizzard Bay!' Sarah did not wait to
hear more. She was of a timid nature where danger was concerned, and
could not bear to hear of wrecks and disasters. She went home and
resumed the completion of her dress, secretly determined to appease
Eric when she should meet him with a sweet apology--and to take the
earliest opportunity of being even with him after her marriage. The
old fisherman's weather prophecy was justified. That night at dusk a
wild storm came on. The sea rose and lashed the western coasts from
Skye to Scilly and left a tale of disaster everywhere. The sailors and
fishermen of Pencastle all turned out on the rocks and cliffs and
watched eagerly. Presently, by a flash of lightning, a 'ketch' was
seen drifting under only a jib about half-a-mile outside the port. All
eyes and all glasses were concentrated on her, waiting for the next
flash, and when it came a chorus went up that it was the _Lovely
Alice_, trading between Bristol and Penzance, and touching at all the
little ports between. 'God help them!' said the harbour-master, 'for
nothing in this world can save them when they are between Bude and
Tintagel and the wind on shore!' The coastguards exerted themselves,
and, aided by brave hearts and willing hands, they brought the rocket
apparatus up on the summit of the Flagstaff Rock. Then they burned
blue lights so that those on board might see the harbour opening in
case they could make any effort to reach it. They worked gallantly
enough on board; but no skill or strength of man could avail. Before
many minutes were over the _Lovely Alice_ rushed to her doom on the
great island rock that guarded the mouth of the port.