“There’s small chance of that,” was the answer. “You don’t know this coast like I do, Major, or you’d hardly have insisted on coming out. No boat could live a moment in the surf that must now be beating on the shore. I’ve seen many a poor fellow hang in the shrouds, in my time, for a matter of twenty-four hours or so; and that, too, with a dozen or more looking at him all the while—yet he’s been forced to drop into the sea at last, because no one could get to him. It was only last January, that one of King George’s transports struck and bilged in a snow-storm, on the beach right ahead of us; and not a soul was saved. The coast was strewed, for miles, with dead bodies, some of officers in uniforms, and others of common soldiers; and there were women, too, among ‘em. I wasn’t on the beach myself, but from all accounts it was dreadful to see. Once, howsomever, I knew three men to cling to the cross-trees of a sloop, which had sunk in some twelve feet water, and there they held fast, like dying men will, for two days and a night. I could hear their cries all the while, for the wind blew strong on shore; but they got weaker and faint-like, ‘specially towards the first night; and on the second morning there was only one could be heard.” He paused, moved by the mere recollection, and then proceeded. “His voice, too, as the day went on, got weaker, till about an hour before sunset, and when at last the surf was beginning to go down, he dropped quietly into the sea. The others had died hours before. So I doubt if we can do any good, even if we find a wreck. It’s a bad thing, too, Major, to see poor creatures in mortal agony, yet not be able to help ‘em. You’ll wish you’d never come. But as you say go, go we do.” “Thank you,” answered Major Gordon, with a husky voice, deeply moved by the sad narratives of the speaker, and almost convinced that he was only conducting them to the threshold of another drama of the same character. “But I could never again rest in my bed, if I didn’t make an effort, at least, to see if there’s a wreck, and try what can be done. I should be always hearing the boom of the alarm gun in my dreams.” The rain had now ceased, but a drizzling mist had set in, through whose folds the dreary landscape looked more desolate than ever. The slate-colored clouds, flying just overhead, drifted rapidly in from the sea, and sweeping past, like the wings of gigantic birds seen in the dusk of night, disappeared in the vague haze inland. As the boat beat across the bay, the water flew crackling over her forecastle, often even wetting Major Gordon and Mullen in the stern; while the parted waves, bubbling and hissing by, whirled off behind in creamy eddies.