one look sufficed. When that look had been
given there was an end to the matter; and on this occasion, after Arthur
had been made to wince, his petulant display of fear was put back in the
past.

"Boys," he cried, "I would not like to have missed this scene. How
awful and how grand!"

They were standing in the shelter of a pilchard house, one of the long
buildings where these silvery, oily relatives of the herring are salted
before being pressed in barrels and sent away to the Mediterranean ports
by hundreds of tons every year. The building took the brunt of the
roaring wind and spray torn from the huge billows that thundered in and
raced up the beach, and pounded the rocks, so that the spectators could
gaze at the wild chaos of tossing waves, and watch the heaped-up waters
as they dashed in like some savage army, whose aim was to tear down the
rocky barriers of our isle and sweep all away.

In the harbour lay the luggers, and a good-sized brig, and a steam-tug
that had brought it in after missing Corn town; and as the great waves
came with a spang upon the stone pier, and leaped over the lanterns, and
poured down tons of spray upon their decks, they rocked and groaned as
they rubbed together, and in spite of mooring ropes a sharp crack now
and then told of damages to be repaired.

The cliff glistened with oilskin-clad men, many of whom bore long,
clumsy telescopes, while others in great high boots, and with their
sou'-westers tied beneath their chins, walked amongst the foam, a coil
of strong rope upon their shoulders, and a boat-hook in hand, ready for
anything in the way of flotsam and jetsam that might come ashore.

Already they had drawn up the mast of a lugger with its ropes and
blocks, telling tales of some misfortune at sea.

A barrel or two had come ashore; and as Dick watched, he saw one man run
out after a wave, catch at something, miss it, and then get hold of a
rope, with which he ran ashore.

Directly after they saw another figure leave a companion and run in
after a retiring wave, the foam knee-deep, and catch at something else
which came slowly.

"Mind, mind!" cried Dick excitedly; "the wave! the wave!"

Arthur gave a gasp and ran right out towards where the figure, fully a
hundred yards away, was clinging to something that looked brown against
the white foam, and apparently heedless of the fact that a tremendous
wave was racing in.

His comrade saw it though and ran to his help, catching