"Then why didn't you go and save them?" cried Dick excitedly. "You are all good sailors about here, and have boats. You ought to do something to save the poor things." "We do," said Will sadly. "I mean our men do when they can." "Haven't you got a life-boat?" "There is one at Corntown and another at Penillian Sands; but sometimes before a life-boat can be fetched a ship has gone to pieces." "And all the people drowned?" "Yes. Come below here," said Will, leading the way down the cliff. "Is--is it safe?" said Dick. "I will not take you where there's any danger," said Will. Dick hesitated for a few moments, and then followed his companion down a path cut in a rift of the rock where a tiny stream trickled down from far inland. The mouth of the rift was protected by a pile of rocks, against which the wind beat and the waves thundered, but the path was so sheltered that the lads were able to get nearly down to the shore. "There are lots of paths like this down the cliff all about the coast," said Will quietly. "They are useful for men to get down to their boats in bad weather." He pointed to one that was drawn right up on rollers twenty feet above the waves and snugly sheltered from the storm. "There," said Will the next minute, as he stood holding on behind a rock, with Dick by his side. "We're safe enough here; the wind goes by us, you see, and the waves don't bite here. Now, what do you think of that?" Dick drew a long breath two or three times over before he could speak, for the scene was awful in its grandeur, and, young as he was, he felt what mere pigmies are men in face of the giants of the elements when Nature is in anger and lets loose her storms upon our shores. Every minute, from amidst the boiling chaos of waves, one bigger than the rest came slowly from seaward with a strange gliding motion, to raise itself up like some crested serpent and curl over, and then, as it was riven in ten thousand streams and sheets of jagged foam, there was a dull roar as of thunder, the wind shrieked and yelled, and, serpent-like, the broken wave hissed, and seethed, and choked, and gurgled horribly amongst the rocks. "What do you think of that?" said Will again gravely as he placed his lips close to Dick's ear. "How awful the sea is!" panted Dick as he seemed more than ever to realise its force. "Yes," said Will quietly, and there was a sad smile on the boy's lip as he spoke. "But you said a little while ago that our men ought to help the shipwrecked men. Shall we get down that boat and have a row?" "Row!" cried Dick with a horrified look; "why, it couldn't be done." "Would you like to see your father and some more men get down that boat and put off to sea?" "It would be impossible," cried Dick. "She would be tossed over by the waves and everybody drowned."