At the moment when Jemmy Quark glanced into the face of Tommy-Bill-beg there was a smile on that benign countenance. Jemmy mistook that smile. He imagined he saw a trick. Jemmy could read, and he perceived that the carol which the harbor-master held out to him was not the carol he had been told to prepare for. They were, by arrangement, to have sung the English version of "Bad Women." This was the Manx version, and it was always sung to a different metre. Ha! Jemmy understood it all! This rascally Tommy-Bill-beg was trying to expose him. The monster wanted to show that he, Jemmy Quark Balladhoo, could only sing one carol, but Jemmy would be even with him. He _could_ sing this Manx version, and he _would_. It was Jemmy's turn to smile. "Aw, look at them--the pair of them--grinnin' together like the two ould gurgoils on the steeple." At a motion of the harbor-master's hand, intended to beat the time, the singers began. Tommy-Bill-beg sang the carol agreed upon--the English version of "Bad Women." Jemmy Quark sang the carol of which they held the printed copy in their hands--the Manx version of "Bad Women." Neither heard the other. Each bawled at the utmost reach of his lung-power. To one tune Tommy-Bill-beg sang: "Thus from the days of Adam Her mischief you may trace," and to another tune Jemmy Quark sang: "She ish va'n voir ain ooilley Son v'ee da Adam ben," What laughter ensued! How the young women in the gallery lay back in their seats with shrieks of hysteria! How the young fellows in the body made the sacred edifice ring with guffaws! But the singers--Tommy especially--with eyes steadfastly fixed on the paper, heard nothing but each his own voice. Thus they sang on. They had got through three verses, and made three strides toward the communion, when suddenly there was heard above the uproar a dismal and unearthly cry, and all at once the laughter and the shouting of the people ceased. Every face turned to the porch. Bareheaded, dripping wet from his matted hair to his feet, a ghastly light in his sunken eyes, with wasted cheeks and panting breath, Danny Fayle stood there, one hand on the door-jamb, the other holding a coil of rope. "The 'Ben-my-Chree' is on the rocks!" he cried, and was gone in an instant. If a spectre had appeared the consternation had scarcely been greater. But the next moment, recovering from their surprise, the people on all sides leaped up and rushed out of the church. In two minutes not a soul was left except Tommy-Bill-beg and Jemmy Quark Balladhoo, who still sang lustily, oblivious of the fact that they had no audience. CHAPTER XXII ON THE MOAR REEF This is what had happened. When Christian and Mona turned away from the house in the quarry, with its dead man and solitary watcher, they thought they descried a sail far out in the black void beyond the line of wild sea that was lighted up by the burning gorse.