Elsley hurries down, and finds half the village collected on the long sloping point of down below. Sailors wrapped in pilot-cloth, oil-skinned coast-guardsmen, women with their gowns turned over their heads, staggering restlessly up and down, and in and out, while every moment some fresh comer stumbles down the slope, thrusting himself into his clothes as he goes, and asks, "Where's the wreck!" and gets no answer, but a surly advice to "hold his noise," as if they had hope of hearing the wreck which they cannot see; and kind women, with their hearts full of mothers' instincts, declare that they can hear little children crying, and are pooh-poohed down by kind men, who, man's fashion, don't like to believe anything too painful, or, if they believe it, to talk of it. "What were the guns from, then, Brown?" asks the Lieutenant of the head-boatman. "Off the Chough and Crow, I thought, sir. God grant not!" "You thought, sir!" says the great man, willing to vent his vexation on some one. "_Why_ didn't you make sure?" "Why, just look, Lieutenant," says Brown, pointing into the "blank height of the dark;" "and I was on the pier too, and couldn't see; but the look-out man here says--" A shift of wind, a drift of cloud, and the moon flashes out a moment.--"There she is, sir!" Some three hundred yards out at sea lies a long curved black line, beautiful, severe, and still, amid those white wild leaping hills. A murmur from the crowd, which swells into a roar, as they surge aimlessly up and down. Another moment, and it is cut in two by a white line--covered--lost--all hold their breaths. No; the sea passes on, and still the black curve is there; enduring. "A terrible big ship!" "A Liverpool clipper, by the lines of her." "God help the poor passengers, then!" sobs a woman. "They're past our help: she's on her beam ends." "And her deck upright toward us." "Silence! Out of the way you loafing long-shores!" shouts the Lieutenant. "Brown--the rockets!" What though the Lieutenant be somewhat given to strong liquors, and stronger language? He wears the Queen's uniform; and what is more, he knows his work, and can do it; all make a silent ring while the fork is planted; the Lieutenant, throwing away the end of his cigar, kneels and adjusts the stick; Brown and his mates examine and shake out the coils of line. Another minute, and the magnificent creature rushes forth with a triumphant roar, and soars aloft over the waves in a long stream of fire, defiant of the gale. Is it over her? No! A fierce gust, which all but hurls the spectators to the ground; the fiery stream sweeps away to the left, in a grand curve of sparks, and drops into the sea. "Try it again!" shouts the Lieutenant, his blood now up. "We'll see which will beat, wind or powder." Again a rocket is fixed, with more allowance for the wind; but the black curve has disappeared, and he must wait awhile.