She was about to 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 above high-water mark. As the little schooner came tearing abreast of it, a huge sea caught her broadside, and lifted as if to fling her high and dry. The men and women on the headland held their breath while she hung on its apex. Then she toppled and plunged across the mouth of the cove, quivering. She must have shaved the point by a foot. "The Raney! the Raney!" shouted young Zeb, shaking off Ruby's clutch. "The Raney, or else--"