ay and
disappeared. By-and-by a spit or two of rain came flying out of the
black north-west. The drops fell in the path of the sand, but the
sand drove over and covered them, racing faster and faster.

Day rose, and Taffy awoke. The house walls were shaking. With each
blow the wind ran up a scale of notes and ended with a howl.
He looked out. Sea and sky had melted into one; only now and then
white surf line heaved into sight, and melted back into grey.
After breakfast he and his father started to battle their way to
Tredinnis House, while Humility barricaded the door behind them.
Taffy wore a suit of oilers, of which he was mightily proud.

They made their way under the lee of the towans to escape the
stinging sand. Within Tredinnis Gates they found a couple of
pine-trees blown down across the road, and scrambled over their
trunks. Before lessons, Taffy boasted a lot of his journey to
Honoria, and almost forgot to be sorry that George did not appear,
though it was Wednesday.

They had no trouble in reaching home. The gale hurled them along.
Taffy, leaning his back against it, could scarcely feel his feet
touching ground. Humility unfastened the door, looking white and
anxious. Before they could close it again, the wind swept a big dish
off the dresser with a crash.

Taffy slept soundly that night. He did not hear a knocking which
sounded on the house-door, soon after eleven o'clock. The man who
knocked came from Tresedder, one of the moor farms. "Oh, sir! did
'ee see the rockets go up over Innis? There'll be dead men down 'pon
the Island rocks."

Taffy slept on. When he came downstairs next morning there was a
stranger in the kitchen--a little old man, huddled in a blanket
before the great fireplace, where a line of clothes hung drying.
Humility was stooping to wedge a sand-bag under the door. She looked
up at Taffy with a wan little smile.

"There has been a wreck," she said.

"Glory be!" exclaimed the stranger from the fire-place.

Taffy glanced at him, but could see little more than the back of a
bald head above the blankets.

"Where's the ship?" he asked.

"Gone," answered the Vicar, coming at that moment from the inner room
where his books were. "She must have broken up in less than ten
minutes after she struck the Island--parted and gone down in six
fathoms of water."

"And the men? Was father there?" It bewildered Taffy that all this
should have happened while he was sleeping.