smoke
in their efforts to get ahead. The tide had now turned ebb to set us on
our way. As we surged past the channel buoys the pilot was reassured.
The prospect of windy Lowestoft Roads beckoned him on with every coaster
we overhauled and passed; the outlook improved as we timed our passage
between the sea-marks. Off the Sunk, we came on the cause of our
stoppage. The pilot noted a new wreck on the sands, one that had not
been there when last he steered over this route. Beached at high water,
he said. She had not been long on. The wreck lay listed on a spit of
the sandbank. Her bows were blown open, exposing the interior of
forecastle and forehold. Neutral colours were painted on her topside;
the boats were gone and dangling boat-falls streamed alongside in the
tideway. There was no sign of life on her, but a patrol drifter was
standing by with a crowd of men on her decks. Out to seaward a flotilla
of minesweepers was busily at work. Turning no more than a curious eye
on the mined neutral, the pilot paid attention to the steering. That we
were over a mined area had no grave concern for him. Relying on the
minesweepers, he kept course and speed--the channel was reported clear.

LIGHTSHIPS

DEVOTED to the service of humanity, in a bond that linked all seafarers,
lightships and isolated sea-beacons were regarded as exempted from the
operation of warlike acts. The claim of the 'beacons established for the
guidance of mariners' rested upon a high conception of world-wide
service to mankind. Their duties were not directed to military uses or
to favouring alone the nation who manned them. Their upkeep was met by a
universal levy. Their warning beams were not withdrawn from foreign
vessels; no effort was made to establish the nationality of a ship in
distress ere setting portfire to the signal-gun to call out the
lifeboat. On rare occasions sea-rovers interfered with the operation of
the guide-marks. Retribution overtook them; they were outlawed by even
the loose opinion of the period. There is surely more than legend in the
ballad of Sir Ralph the Rover; if death by shipwreck was not actually
his fate, it is at least the penalty adjudged to him by popular acclaim.
Smeaton, in his Folio, records an instance of reparation for a similar
'diversion.'

"Lewis the Fourteenth being at war with England
during the proceeding with this building, a French
privateer took the men at work upon the Eddyston