eard him sobbing like a child in the roaring darkness.

"Come," he coaxed, and putting out a hand, touched his wet hair.
"Come." They crept forward again, but still as he followed the
sailor cried for his drowned brother, up the long slope to the ridge
of the headland, where, with the light-house and warm cottage windows
in view, all speech and hearing were drowned by stinging hail and the
blown grit of the causeway.

Humility opened the door to them.

"Taffy! Where have you been?"

"There has been a wreck."

"Yes, yes--the coast-guard is down by the light-house. The men there
saw her before she struck. They kept signalling till it fell dark.
They had sent off before that."

She drew back, shrinking against the dresser as the lamplight fell on
the stranger. Taffy turned and stared too. The man's face was
running with blood; and looking at his own hands he saw that they
also were scarlet.

He helped the poor wretch to a chair.

"Bandages: can you manage?" She nodded, and stepped to a cupboard.
The sailor began to wail again like an infant.

"See--above the temple here: the cut isn't serious." Taffy took down
a lantern and lit it. The candle shone red through the smears his
fingers left on the horn panes. "I must go and help, if you can
manage."

"I can manage," she answered quietly.

He strode out, and closing the door behind him with an effort, faced
the gale again. Down in the lee of the light-house the lamps of the
coast-guard carriage gleamed foggily through the rain. The men were
there discussing, George among them. He had just galloped up.

The Chief Officer went off to question the survivor, while the rest
began their search. They searched all that night; they burned flares
and shouted; their torches dotted the cliffs. After an hour the
Chief Officer returned. He could make nothing of the sailor, who had
fallen silly from exhaustion or the blow on his head; but he divided
his men into three parties, and they began to hunt more
systematically. Taffy was told off to help the westernmost gang and
search the rocks below the light-house. Once or twice he and his
comrades paused in their work, hearing, as they thought, a cry for
help. But when they listened, it was only one of the other parties
hailing.

The gale began to abate soon after midnight, and before dawn had
blown itself out. Day came, filtered slowly through the wrack of it
to the south-east; and soon they heard a whistle