news spreading inland fetched two or
three score onlookers before ebb of tide--miners for the most part,
whose help could be counted on. The men of the coast-guard had left
the wreck, to bear a hand if needed. George had come too.
And happening to glance upwards while he directed his men, Taffy saw
a carriage with two horses drawn up on the grassy edge of the cliff:
a groom at the horses' heads and in the carriage a figure seated,
silhouetted there high against the clear blue heaven. Well he
recognised, even at that distance, the poise of her head, though for
almost four years he had never set eyes on her,--nor had wished to.

He knew that her eyes were on him now. He felt like a general on the
eve of an engagement. By the almanac the tide would not turn until
4.35. At four, perhaps, they could begin; but even at four the
winter twilight would be on them, and he had taken care to provide
torches and distribute them among the crowd. His own men were making
the most of the daylight left, drilling holes for dear life in the
upper surface of the boulder, and fixing the Lewis-wedges and rings.
They looked to him for every order, and he gave it in a clear,
ringing voice which he knew must carry to the cliff top. He did not
look at George.

He felt sure in his own mind that the wedges and rings would hold;
but to make doubly sure he gave orders to loop an extra chain under
the jutting base of the boulder. The mason who fixed it, standing
waist-high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched
it round the ankle of the dead man. The dead man's brother jumped
down beside him and grasped the slack of it.

At a signal from Taffy the crowd began to light their torches.
He looked at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the
windlasses. Then with a glance towards the cliff he started the
working chant--"_Ayee-ho, Ayee-ho!_" The two gangs--twenty men to
each windlass--took it up with one voice, and to the deep intoned
chant the chains tautened, shuddered for a moment, and began to lift.

"_Ayee-ho!_"

Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed.
To Taffy it seemed an endless time, to the crowd but a few moments
before the brute mass swung clear. A few thrust their torches down
towards the pit where the sailor knelt. Taffy did not look, but gave
the word to pass down the coffin which had been brought in readiness.
A clergyman--his father's successor, but a stranger to him--cl