They started in a body. The fog, to be sure, was a deal worse than ever Miss Gabriel could have credited. Still, the gentlemen using their lanterns and tapping to right and left with their sticks, they found the hard causeway, and blundered along it towards St. Hugh's, the ladies with their shawls drawn over their heads and their heads held down against the drifting wall of moisture. They had made their way thus for about four hundred yards--that is to say, about a third of the length of the causeway--when suddenly the fog ahead of them became luminous, and they perceived torches waving. "Mr. Rogers! Is that Mr. Rogers?" called a voice. "Ay, ay, men!" Mr. Rogers hailed in answer, recognising his coastguard. "I am coming--fast as I can," he added, having at that moment run into a wall. "A wreck, sir!" "Ay! Where is it?" "Somewhere beyond St. Ann's, sir, as we make it--out towards the Monk. There was a gun fired, and Dick, here, thinks as he saw the lighthouse send up a signal; but lights there's none that the rest of us can make out----" "Hark!" Again the fog shook with the concussion of a gun. "Due west, as I make it out," said Mr. Rogers. "Are the boats ready?" "Aye, sir; the jolly-boat manned and off, and the gig launched and lying by the slip." "Then run, men!" "Why, they've left us!" gasped Mrs. Pope, as the glare of the torches melted into the fog. "It doesn't matter," Miss Gabriel assured her bravely. "We have only to keep straight on." CHAPTER V THE S.S. MILO Major Vigoureux fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. He owed this habit originally to a clear conscience, and although (as the reader knows) his conscience was no longer quite clear, the habit had not forsaken him.