haking out her masts and loosening her
timbers and planks, and keeping this on till she tumbled all to pieces
and the sea was strewed with the bits which kept tossing in and out
among the rocks."

"Have you ever seen the sea do this?" said Dick eagerly.

"Yes," replied Will solemnly, "often. It's very awful sometimes to live
at the sea-side on a rocky coast."

The two lads stood for a few minutes silently gazing down into the wild
waste of tossing foam, and then Dick said slowly:

"I think I should like to see a wreck. I shouldn't like for there to be
a wreck; but if there was a wreck I should like to see it."

"I don't think you would again," said Will sadly. "I used to think so
when I was quite a little fellow; but when I did see one it all seemed
so pitiful to know that there were people on board the ship asking you
to come and save them."

"Then why didn't you go and save them?" cried Dick excitedly. "You are
all good sailors about here, and have boats. You ought to do something
to save the poor things."

"We do," said Will sadly. "I mean our men do when they can."

"Haven't you got a life-boat?"

"There is one at Corntown and another at Penillian Sands; but sometimes
before a life-boat can be fetched a ship has gone to pieces."

"And all the people drowned?"

"Yes. Come below here," said Will, leading the way down the cliff.

"Is--is it safe?" said Dick.

"I will not take you where there's any danger," said Will.

Dick hesitated for a few moments, and then followed his companion down a
path cut in a rift of the rock where a tiny stream trickled down from
far inland.

The mouth of the rift was protected by a pile of rocks, against which
the wind beat and the waves thundered, but the path was so sheltered
that the lads were able to get nearly down to the shore.

"There are lots of paths like this down the cliff all about the coast,"
said Will quietly. "They are useful for men to get down to their boats
in bad weather."

He pointed to one that was drawn right up on rollers twenty feet above
the waves and snugly sheltered from the storm.

"There," said Will the next minute, as he stood holding on behind a
rock, with Dick by his side. "We're safe enough here; the wind goes by
us, you see, and the waves don't bite here. Now, what do you think of
that?"

Dick drew a long breath two or three times over before he could speak,
for the scene was awful in its grandeur, and, young as he was, he