As they journeyed along, they twice again saw the flash of the signal guns; the second time the ship herself became visible, very near the shore, a helpless waif apparently, tossed on the summit of a mountain surge. The bulwarks, which showed as those of a large vessel, stood out black against the murky horizon for an instant, and then sank again among the tumbling waves. Two of her masts were gone, but the third entangled in the wreck of rigging, still held out. Presently there was a crash audible above the storm. Another, and they saw the ship impaled on the jagged rocks at the mouth of the bay. The furious billows rushed up after her, wave on wave, as if refusing to be baulked of their prey, washed over her from end to end, broke down the remaining mast, and shook and ground her among the rocks. A few cries were carried shoreward, shrill above the tempest, and then went out in the night. Another crash--and the wreck parted asunder and fell back into the sea, and was whirled away among the furious breakers, which tore it plank from plank, and strewed the relics of that goodly ship for miles along the shore. It was wearing towards morning, and the wind was perceptibly falling when these wayfarers reached their destination. A candle burning in the window seemed the only sign of life in the whole slumbering town; and even that guttered and flickered low in its socket, an emblem of the life slowly burning itself out on the adjoining bed. A stentorious breathing, coming at irregular and ever-lengthening intervals, told that Sandie's granny was already setting out on her long journey--that she had closed her eyes for ever on all the things of time, even the ministrations of religion; and that the mysteries to which those ministrations can, at the best, but darkly point, would shortly be uncovered to her immortal view. The minister was dried and warmed and refreshed, but there was little call for his services. The watchers were too weary with their watching to give much heed to consolation; he did, however, what was possible and retired to rest. CHAPTER III THE FIND. Long ere daylight the storm had died away. The new-risen sun shone in a sky of transparent blue, with not a cirrhus rag to shew of the enswathing vapours of the night before. The air, bracingly fresh but calm, stirred faintly among the sandhills by the shore, shaking out the bent and grasses laid limp and tangled by their drenching overnight.