me knew it as
the hated spot where they had suffered the loss of all their fortune;
but others there were, who, untouched by the thought of material gain or
loss, knew it as the scene of the wreck of all their earthly hopes--for
the _Seagull_ had been a passenger-ship, and in that quiet bay God in
His providence had dealt some of the most awful blows that human beings
are capable of bearing.

Close to a bald cliff on the northern shore the foretopmast of the wreck
rose a few feet above the calm water. In a cove of the cliff the
remains of a mast or yard lay parallel with a deep and thick mass of
wreckage, which had surged out and into that cove on the fatal night
with such violence that it now lay in small pieces, like giant
matchwood. On a patch of gravel not far from that cliff a husband and
father had wandered for many days, after being saved--he knew not how--
gazing wistfully, hopelessly at the sea which had swallowed up wife and
children and fortune. He had been a "successful" gold-digger! On that
patch of gravel scenes of terrible suspense had been enacted. Expectant
ones had come to inquire whether those whom they sought had _really_
embarked in that vessel, while grave and sympathetic but worn-out or
weary men of the Coast-guard, stood ready to give information or to
defend the wreck.

In the church on the hill there were dreadful marks on the floor, where
the recovered bodies had lain for a time, while frantic relations came
and went day by day to search for and claim their dead. Ah, reader, we
are not mocking you with fiction. What we refer to is fact. We saw it
with our eyes. Peaceful though that spot looked--and often looks--it
was once the scene of the wildest of storms, the most terrible of
mercantile disasters, and the deepest of human woe.

But we are mingling thoughts with memories. The wreck which has crept
into our mind is that of the _Royal Charter_. The _Seagull_, although a
passenger-ship, and wrecked near the same region, does not resemble
_that_!

At the time of which we write, Joe Baldwin and his men had already saved
a considerable portion of the cargo, but during his submarine
explorations and meditations Joe had conceived the idea that there was
some possibility of saving the vessel itself, for, having recoiled from
its first shock and sunk in deep water, the hull was comparatively
uninjured.

But Joe, although a good diver, was not a practical engineer. He knew
himself to