an. Here and there it swelled up into great drifts and mounds of
sand, which were almost large enough to be called hills; but nowhere did
it show a tree, or a bush, or even a patch of grass. Annie Foster found
herself getting melancholy, as she gazed upon it, and thought of how the
winds must sometimes sweep across it, laden with sea-spray and rain and
hail, or with the bitter sleet and blinding snow of winter.

"Dabney," she said, "was the storm very severe here last night and
yesterday?"

"Worse than it was over on our side of the bay, ten times."

"Were there any vessels wrecked?"

"Most likely, but it's too soon to know just where."

At that moment "The Swallow" was running around a sandy point, jutting
out into the bay from the foot of the highest mound on the bar, not half
a mile from the light-house, and only twice as far from the low wooden
roof of the "wrecking-station," where, as Dab had explained to his
guests, the lifeboats and other apparatus of all sorts were kept safely
housed. The piles of drifted sand had for some time prevented the
brightest eyes on board "The Swallow" from seeing any thing to seaward;
but now, as they came around the point and a broad level lay before
them, Ham Morris sprang to his feet in sudden excitement, as he
exclaimed,--

"In the breakers! Why, she must have been a three-master! It's all up
with her now."

"Look along the shore!" shouted Dab. "Some of 'em saved, anyhow. The
coast-men are there, too, life-boats and all."

So they were; and Ham was right about the vessel, though not a mast was
left standing in her now. If there had been, indeed, she might have been
kept off the breakers, as they afterwards learned. She had been
dismasted in the storm, but had not struck until after daylight that
morning, and help had been close at hand and promptly given. There was
no such thing as saving that unfortunate hull. She would beat to pieces
just where she lay, sooner or later, according to the kind of weather
that might take the job in hand, and the size and force of the waves it
should bring with it.

The work done already by the life-boat men had been a good one; and it
had not been very easy, either, for they had brought the crew and
passengers safely through the boiling surf, and landed them all upon the
sandy beach. They had even saved for them some items of baggage. In a
few hours the coast "wrecking-tugs" would be on hand to look out for the
cargo. There was therefore