ely and delicate,
such as we heard neither from Scillonians nor from the sailors who
visit St. Mary's.

"'Yes,' he answered, his face breaking into a smile of unexpected
softness, 'I know these islands. From Rosevean to Ganilly, from
Peninnis Head to Maiden Bower: I know them well.'"

* * * * *

At this point Mr. Wyeth broke off his story, and crossing to the
window, opened it. "Listen!" he said. I heard as it were the sound of
innumerable voices chattering and murmuring and whispering in some
mysterious language, and at times the voices blended and the murmurs
became a single moan.

"It is the tide making on the Golden Ball," said Mr. Wyeth. "The reef
stretches seawards from St. Helen's island and half way across the
Sound. You may see it at low tide, a ledge level as a paved causeway,
and God help the ship that strikes on it!"

Even while he spoke, from these undertones of sound there swelled
suddenly a great booming like a battery of cannon.

"It is the ledge cracking," said Mr. Wyeth, "and it cracks in the
calmest weather." With that, he closed the window, and, lighting his
pipe, resumed his story.

* * * * *

"It was on that reef that Mr. Robert Lovyes was wrecked. The ship, he
told us, was the schooner _Waking Dawn_, bound from Cardiff to Africa,
and she had run into the fog about half-past three, when they were a
mile short of the Seven Stones. She bumped twice on the reef, and sank
immediately, with, so far as he knew, all her crew.

"'So now,' Robert continued, tapping his belt, 'since I have the means
to pay, I will make bold to ask for a lodging, and for this night I
will hang up here my dripping garments to Neptune.'

"'Me tabula sacer
Votiva paries--'

"I began in the pride of my schooling, for I had learned that verse of
Horace but a week before.

"'This, no doubt, is the Cornish tongue,' he interrupted gravely, 'and
will you please to carry my boots outside?'

"What followed seemed to me then the strangest part of all this
business, though, indeed, our sea-fogs come and go as often as not
with a like abruptness. But the time of this fog's dispersion shocked
the mind as something pitiless and arbitrary. For had the air cleared
an hour before, the _Waking Dawn_ would not have struck. I opened the
door, and it was as though a panel of brilliant white was of a sudden
painted on the floor. Robert Lovyes sprang up from the set