anger of a word being
repeated either forward or to the servants below in the ward-room.

In talking and yarning right quickly passed the evening in the captain's
cabin; but everywhere fore and aft to-night both officers and crew were
hearty. They had already bidden farewell to friends and home, soon their
country too would fade far away from sight, and then--the glories of
war. Ah! never mind about its horrors; what brave young British sailor
ever thought of these?

CHAPTER IX.

"A SPLENDID NIGHT'S WORK, TOM!"

"Ah! cruel, hard-hearted, to press him,
And force the dear youth from my arms;
Restore him, that I may caress him,
And shield him from future alarms."
DIBDIN'S _Pressgang_.

It was near to the hour of sunset, on an autumn evening about a week
after the cozy dinner-party in the cabin of Captain Jack Mackenzie of
the _Tonneraire_. The tree-clad hills and terra-cotta cliffs around Tor
Bay were all ablur with driving mist and rain, borne viciously along on
the wings of a north-east gale. Far out beyond the harbour mouth,
betwixt Berry Head and Hope's Nose, the steel-blue waters were flecked
and streaked with foam; while high against the rocks of Corbyn's Head
the waves broke in clouds of spray.

As night fell, the wind seemed to increase; the sky was filled with
storm-riven clouds; and the "white horses" that rode on the bay grew
taller and taller.

Surely on such a night as this every fishing-boat would seek shelter,
and vessels near to the land would make good their offing for safety's
sake.

There were those who, gazing out upon the storm from the green plateau
above Daddy's Hole, where the coastguard station now is, thought
otherwise.

Daddy's Hole is a sort of inlet or indentation in the rock-wall, which
rises so steeply up to the plain above that, though covered with grass,
it seems hardly to afford foothold for goats. No man in his senses would
venture to descend from above in a straight line, nor even by zigzag,
were it not for the fact that here and there through the smooth green
surface rocks protrude which would break his fall.

Shading their eyes with their hands in the gathering gloom, with faces
seaward, stood two rough-looking men, of the class we might call
amphibious--men at home either on the water or on shore.

"It can't be done," said one. "No, capting, it can't."

"Can't?" thundered the other; "and I tells yew, Dan, the s