o ask him what this wreck amounted to, that she should
for the moment sink to nothing in comparison with it. But, at this
instant, a small group of men and women joined them, and, catching sight
of the faces of Sarah Ann Nanjulian and Modesty Prowse, her friends, she
tried another tack--

"Well, Zeb, no doubt 'twas disappointing for you; but don't 'ee take on
so. Think how much harder 'tis for the poor souls i' that ship."

This astute sentence, however, missed fire completely. Zeb answered it
with a point-blank stare of bewilderment. The others took no notice of
it whatever.

"Hav'ee seen her, Zeb?" called out his father.

"No."

"Nor I nuther. 'Reckon 'tis all over a'ready. I've a-heard afore
now," he went on, turning his back to the wind the better to wink at the
company, "that 'tis lucky for some folks Gauger Hocken hain't extra spry
'pon his pins. But 'tis a gift that cuts both ways. Be any gone round
by Cove Head to look out?"

"Iss, a dozen or more. I saw 'em 'pon the road, a minute back, like
emmets runnin'."

"'Twas very nice feelin', I must own--very nice indeed--of Gauger Hocken
to warn the church-folk first; and him a man of no faith, as you may
say. Hey? What's that? Dost see her, Zeb?"

For Zeb, with his right hand pressing down his cap, now suddenly flung
his left out in the direction of Bradden Point. Men and women craned
forward.

Below the distant promontory, a darker speck had started out of the
medley of grey tones. In a moment it had doubled its size--had become a
blur--then a shape. And at length, out of the leaden wrack, there
emerged a small schooner, with tall, raking masts, flying straight
towards them.

"Dear God!" muttered some one, while Ruby dug her finger-tips into Zeb's
arm.

The schooner raced under bare poles, though a strip or two of canvas
streamed out from her fore-yards. Yet she came with a rush like a
greyhound's, heeling over the whitened water, close under the cliffs,
and closer with every instant. A man, standing on any one of the points
she cleared so narrowly, might have tossed a pebble on to her deck.

"Hey, friends, but she'll not weather Gaffer's Rock. By crum! if she
does, they may drive her in 'pon the beach, yet!"

"What's the use, i' this sea? Besides, her steerin' gear's broke,"
answered Zeb, without moving his eyes.

This Gaffer's Rock was the extreme point of the opposite arm of the
cove--a sharp tooth rising ten feet or more abo