Since it entirely absorbed his unconscious thoughts his attention always seemed preoccupied; an abstraction which lent however, an agreeable effect of detachment from ordinary worries. He was, perhaps for that reason, the serenest member of the ship's company, and the one most obligingly at the service of other men's affairs. But on this windy morning he was allowed to reflect on his own adversities, till a shout from forward called his eyes towards the shore. The _Candia_ had just cleared a long headland and opened the narrow bay beyond, where, canted slightly to starboard, lay a big three-master, the rags of her royals and a staysail slapping the wind, the long blue rollers breaking against her in spouts of foam. She was evidently on the rocks, and yet an impracticable distance from the forbidding shore, which swept in a purple skirting of cliff about her. Dark figures could be seen moving on the bridge and in the rigging, and the flutter of a woman's skirts could be made out against the shrouds. The _Candia_ stood in towards the shore, and her decks were soon crowded with excited passengers, waiting anxiously the lowering of a boat and speculating on the way in which a rescue would be attempted. A line of colour ran up to the barque's peak, and was answered presently by a signal from the steamer; then the engines slowed and stopped. The _Candia_ rolled ponderously in the long swell while another signal was exchanged the splash of the lead becoming suddenly audible in the silence. The vessels were now not more than five hundred yards apart, and every detail could be seen upon the wreck. Save for the few figures on the bridge and poop, all those on board her had taken to the rigging, as the sloping decks were swept by the heavier waves. Several women could be seen on her, and the glass showed them to be lashed to the shrouds, and apparently exhausted. Each fresh evidence of urgency increased the impatience on board the _Candia_. Yet no scheme of assistance seemed in progress. The engines were reversed, the _Candia_ backed in a trifle closer, the roar of the breakers began to make a continuous moil in the air, but the boats hung undisturbed on their davits. The captain was on the bridge and could not be questioned, but presently Sir Anthony Palmer, who as chairman of the _Candia's_ company was superintending the cruise, was seen coming aft with a grave face. He said, in answer to a volley of questions, that no help could be given till the sea went down and the tide had risen. A ledge of rocks lay between the two ships, already defined occasionally by a thrash of foam over which no boat could pass. The stranger must have been carried across it at high water some hours earlier, had struck on a second ledge between that and the shore, and was now equally cut off from succour from the sea or from the land.