d a gun fired, and, with
the same, saw a flame shoot up out of the darkness to windward, making a
sudden fierce light in all the place about. All he could find to think
or say was, 'The Second Coming! The Second Coming! The Bridegroom
cometh, and the wicked He will toss like a ball into a large country';
and being already upon his knees, he just bowed his head and 'bided,
saying this over and over.

"But by'm by, between two squalls, he made bold to lift his head and
look, and then by the light--a bluish color 'twas--he saw all the coast
clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles in the thick of the
weather, a sloop-of-war with topgallants housed, driving stern foremost
toward the reef. It was she, of course, that was burning the fire. My
father could see the white streak and the ports of her quite plain as
she rose to it, a little outside the breakers, and he guessed easy
enough that her captain had just managed to wear ship and was trying to
force her nose to the sea with the help of her small bower anchor and
the scrap or two of canvas that hadn't yet been blown out of her. But
while he looked, she fell off, giving her broadside to it, foot by foot,
and drifting back on the breakers around Carn Du and the Varses. The
rocks lie so thick thereabout that 'twas a toss up which she struck
first; at any rate, my father couldn't tell at the time, for just then
the flare died down and went out.

"Well, sir, he turned then in the dark and started back for Coverack to
cry the dismal tidings--though well knowing ship and crew to be past any
hope, and as he turned the wind lifted him and tossed him forward 'like
a ball,' as he'd been saying, and homeward along the foreshore. As you
know, 'tis ugly work, even by daylight, picking your way among the
stones there, and my father was prettily knocked about at first in the
dark. But by this 'twas nearer seven than six o'clock, and the day
spreading. By the time he reached North Corner, a man could see to read
print; hows'ever, he looked neither out to sea nor toward Coverack, but
headed straight for the first cottage--the same that stands above North
Corner to-day. A man named Billy Ede lived there then, and when my
father burst into the kitchen bawling, 'Wreck! wreck!' he saw Billy
Ede's wife, Ann, standing there in her clogs with a shawl over her head,
and her clothes wringing wet.

"'Save the chap,' says Billy Ede's wife, Ann. 'What d'ee mean by crying
stale fish at that