another drain and fill and light his pipe; but with Black Dennis Nolan roaring at him like a walrus, he had not ventured to delay. He groped his way from cabin to cabin, kicking on doors and bellowing the skipper's orders.

An hour and a half later, twenty men of Chance Along were clustered at the edge of the broken cliff overlooking the beach of Nolan's Cove and the rock-scarred sea beyond. But they could see nothing of beach or tide. The fog clung around them like black and sodden curtains. Here and there a lantern made an orange blur against the black. Some of the men held coils of rope with light grappling-irons spliced to the free ends. Others had home-made boat-hooks, the poles of which were fully ten feet long.

They heard the dull boom of a gun to seaward.

"She bes closer in!" exclaimed Pat Lynch. "Aye, closer in nor when I first heared her. She bain't so far to the south'ard, neither."

"Sure, then, the tide bes a-pullin' on her an' will drag her in, lads," remarked an old man, with a white beard that reached half-way down his breast.

"What d'ye make o' her, Barney Keen?" asked the skipper of the old man.

"Well, skipper, I'll tell 'e what I makes o' her. 'Twas afore yer day, lad—aye, as much as t'irty year ago—arter just sich weather as this, an' this time o' year, a grand big ship altogether went all abroad on these here rocks. Aye, skipper, a grand ship. Nought come ashore but a junk o' her hull an' a cask o' brandy, an' one o' her boats wid the name on all complete. The Manchester City she was, from Liverpool. We figgered as how she was heading for the gulf—for Quebec, like as not. So I makes it, skipper, as how this here vessel may be bound for Quebec, too."

Black Dennis Nolan took a lantern from another man, and led the way down the broken slope to the beach. The gear was passed down and piled at the edge of the tide. Dry wood—the fragments of ships long since broken on the outer rocks—was gathered from where it had been stranded high by many spring tides, and heaped on a wide, flat rock half-way up the slope. Another heap of splintered planks and wave-worn timbers was constructed on the level of the beach, close to the water—all this by the skipper's orders. The sea hammered and sobbed among the rocks, and splintered the new ice along the land-wash.

"If she comes ashore we'll be needin' more nor candle-light to work wid," remarked the skipper.

Again the dull boom of a gun drifted in through the fog.

"Aye, lads, she bes a-drawin' in to us," said old Barney Keen, with a note of intense satisfaction in his rusty voice.

CHAPTER II

NOLAN SHOWS HIS APTITUDE FOR COMMAND

The big ship was hopelessly astray in the fog and in the grip of a black, unseen current that dragged at her keel and bulging beam, pulling her inexorably landward towards the hidden rocks. Her commander felt danger lurking in the fog, but was at a loss to know on which side to look for it, at what point to guard against it. He was a brave man and a master of seamanship in all the minute knacks and tricks of seamanship of that day; but this was only his third voyage between London and the St. Lawrence, and the previous trips had been made in clear weather. The gale had blown him many miles out of his course, and lost him his main-top-ga'ntsail yards and half of his mizzen-mast; the cold snap had weighted ship and rigging with ice, and now the fog and the uncharted deep-sea river had confused his reckoning utterly. But even so, he might have been able to work his vessel out of the danger-zone had any signal been made from the coast in reply to his guns and flares. Even if after the arrival of the men from Chance Along on the beach at Nolan's Cove, the heaps of driftwood had been fired, he might have had time to pull his ship around to the north, drag out of the current that was speeding towards the hidden rocks, and so win away to safety. There was wind enough for handling the ship, he knew all the tricks of cheating a lee-shore of its anticipated spoils, and the seas were not running dangerously high. But his guns and flares went unanswered. All around hung the black, blind curtains of the fog, cruelly silent, cruelly unbroken by any blink of flame.

Black Dennis Nolan and his men stood by the frozen land-wash, along which the currents snarled, and rolling seas, freighted with splinters of black sea-ice, clattered and sloshed, waiting patiently for their harvest from the vast and treacherous fields beyond. A grim harvest! Grim fields to garner from, wherein he who sows peradventure shall not reap, and wherein Death is the farmer! Aye, and grim gleaners those who stand under the broken cliff of Nolan's Cove, waiting and listening in the dark!

A dull, crashing, grinding sound set the black fog vibrating. Then a brief clamor of panic-stricken voices rang in to the shore. Silence followed that—a silence that was suddenly broken by the thumping report of a cannon. The light flared dimly in the fog.

"Quiet, lads!" commanded the skipper. "Let the wood be till I gives ye the word. She bes fast on the rocks, but she bain't busted yet."

"An' she'll not bust inside a week, i' this sea," said one of the men. "Sure, skipper, the crew'll be comin' ashore i' their boats afore long. An' they have their muskets an' cutlasses wid them, ye kin lay to that. None but fools would come ashore on this coast, from a wreck, widout their weepons."

"Aye, an' they'll be carryin' their gold an' sich, too," said the skipper. "Lads, we'll do our best—an' that bain't fightin' an' killin', i' this case, but the usin' o' our wits. Bill Brennen, tell off ten men an' take 'em along the path to the south'ard wid ye. Lay down i' the spruce-tuck alongside the path, about t'ree miles along, an' wait till these folks from the ship comes up to ye, wid four or five o' our own lads a-leadin' the way wid lanterns. They'll be totin' a power o' val'able gear along wid them, ye kin lay to that! Lep out onto 'em, widout a word, snatch the gear an' run fair south along the track, yellin' like hell. Then stow the noise all of a suddent, get clear o' the track an' work back to this Chance Along wid the gear. Don't bat any o' the ship's crew over the head if ye bain't forced to it. The gear bes the t'ing we wants, lads."

"Aye, skipper, aye—but will the sailormen be a-totin' their gear that a-way?" returned Bill.

"Sure, b'y, for I'll tell 'em as we bes from Nap Harbor, an' I'll send four lads to show 'em the way. After ye take their gear—as much as ye kin get quick and easy—they'll follow ye along the path to try to catch ye," replied Black Dennis Nolan.

Bill Brennen went up the twisty path to the barren, and along the edge of the cliff to the southward, followed by ten sturdy fellows armed with long clubs of birch-wood. Of the nine men remaining with the skipper, six were sent, along with the gear, to hide behind the boulders and clumps of bush on the steep slope. The skipper cautioned them to lie low and keep quiet.

"Ahoy, there!" bellowed the skipper.

"Ahoy! Can't you show a light?" came the reply, from the fog.

"Aye, aye, sir. Bes ye on the rocks?"

"Lord, yes! Show a light, man, for Heaven's sake, so we can get the boat away. Her back's broken and her bows stove in. She's breaking up quick."

The skipper and his three companions speedily made a small heap from the big pile of driftwood on the shingle, and lit it from the candle of a lantern. They poured a tin of seal-oil over the dry wreckage, and the red and yellow flames shot up. It was evident to the men on the land-wash that the unfortunate ship had escaped the outer menaces and won within a hundred yards of the shore before striking. She was burning oil now, in vast quantities, to judge by the red glare that cut and stained the fog to