This is the story of this little clump of graves, and of the wreck, to this day unknown. It has been told many times in prose and poetry, but not often truly. Samuel Haley had been quietly lying in his grave two years. The reader may or may not believe he found the frozen bodies of some of the crew next morning reclining on his wall. Here is a wild flower of island growth, of a handful cast upon these fading mounds: "O sailors, did sweet eyes look after you The day you sailed away from sunny Spain? Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew, Melting in tender rain?" I wondered that these fourteen the old sea had strangled and flung up here could rest so peacefully in ground unblessed by Holy Church. Perchance the spot has witnessed midnight mass, with incense and with missal: no doubt beads have been told, and a _pater_ and _ave_ said by pious pilgrims. It is not pleasant to think that the island has become more widely known through the medium of an atrocious murder committed here in March, 1873. Formerly the islanders dated from some well-remembered wreck; now it is before or since the murder on Smutty Nose they reckon. On the morning of March 6th the Norwegian who lives opposite Star Island, on Appledore, heard a cry for help. Going to the shore, he saw a woman standing on the rocks of Malaga in her night-dress. He crossed over and brought the poor creature to his cottage, when it appeared that her feet were frozen. She was half dead with fright and exposure, but told her tale as soon as she was able. John Hontvet, a fisherman, occupied one of the three houses on Smutty Nose; the third counting from the little cove, as you look at it from Star Island. On the night of the 5th of March he was at Portsmouth, leaving three women--Mary, his wife; Annethe and Karen Christensen--at home. They went to bed as usual, Annethe with Mrs. Hontvet in the bedroom; Karen on a couch in the kitchen. It was a fine moonlight night, though cold, and there was snow on the ground.