't have to wait long," cried the mate; and almost as
he spoke, a heavy roller was seen to lift up the wreck on the top of its
crest and roll it over, after which the dark body they had observed on
the reef with the little scrap of a flag fluttering over it was there no
longer!

The _Nancy Bell_, or rather the remaining fragments of her hull, had
disappeared at last beneath the waves!

"I'm afraid we sha'n't be able to save anything," said Mr Meldrum,
after a moment of silence, in which each of the three witnesses of the
vessel's end had drawn a deep breath, showing how affecting had been the
sight. "It is such a long distance out there, and the sea is running so
heavily besides, that I wouldn't like to risk the boat."

"Sure and we could thry, sorr," pleaded the first mate eagerly.

"No, Mr McCarthy, it would be hazardous in the extreme; and we ought
not to peril the men's lives unnecessarily! Still, if you want to do
something--"

"Bedad I do," interrupted the other, as if ready at once to dive into
the sea if required.

"Well," continued Mr Meldrum, "you can post a man on the watch here and
one or two other places along the cliff, to notice if anything floats
inshore; and then, of course, we'll make an effort to bring it to land
should the wreckage drift near."

"Aye, aye, sorr, you may dipind upon me that same," said Mr McCarthy;
and, rushing down from the rock, he was soon in front of the men's
compartment of the tent, rousing them out with a cry of, "Ahoy there!
All hands on deck to save ship! Tumble up, tumble up there, my
hearties, there's no time to lose!"

The men coming out with alacrity, half bewildered by such a hail under
the circumstances and surroundings, four were picked out and posted to
look out like sentinels--two on the beach and two on the ridge above--
and all with strict injunctions to report anything they saw at once,
just as if they were put to the same duty on board ship.

"Now, mind ye kape a good watch," said the first mate, as he left them
to their own devices, "and out if you say a single hincoop floating in
the say foreninst ye--though it's little enough of them you'll say,
sure, considerin' they were all washed overboard off the Cape!--I mane
if ye say any timbers or spars from the wrack drifting inshore, just you
hould your eye on thim, or the divil a mother's son ye'll have a roof
over his hid or a pace of foire to warm his-self! Faix, ye needn't
snigger, ye spalpeens; it