seaward.

"What sort of channel?" came the question.

"Full o' rocks, sir; but it bes safe enough wid caution," cried the skipper.

"Can't you show more light?"

"Aye, sir, there bes more wood."

A second fire was built still closer to the edge of the tide than the first.

"Stand by to receive a line," warned the masterful voice from the ship.

A rocket banged and a light line fell writhing across the beach.

"Haul her in and make fast the hawser."

Black Dennis Nolan and his three companions were most obliging. They pulled in the line until the wet hawser on the end of it appeared, and this they made fast to a rock on the beach as big as a house.

A small light appeared between the ship and the shore, blinking and vanishing low down on the pitching sea. The glare from the fires on the land-wash presently discovered this to be an oil-lantern in the bows of a boat. The boat, which contained about a dozen men, was being hand-hauled along the line that ran from the wreck to the shore. Black Dennis Nolan and his companions exchanged glances at sight of drawn cutlasses and several rifles and pistols in the hands of the men from the wreck. As the leading boat came within ten yards of the shore an officer stood up in her bows. By this time the light of a second boat was blinking and vanishing in her wake.

"Bear a hand to ease us off," commanded the person in the bows of the boat.

"Aye, sir, we bes ready to help ye," replied the skipper, humbly.

"How is the landing?"

"It bes clear, sir—shelvin' rock."

"How many are you, there?"

"We bes four poor fishermen, sir."

The boat rowed in and was kept from staving in her keel on the land-wash by Nolan and his men. The officer sprang from the bows to the icy shingle, slipped and recovered himself with an oath. He was a huge fellow. In one hand he carried an iron dispatch box, and in the other a heavy pistol.

"This the lot of you?" he asked, glancing sharply at Black Dennis Nolan.

"Aye, sir, we bes only four poor fishermen," replied Nolan.

"I am glad to hear it. This coast has the name of being a bad place for shipwrecked people to come ashore on."

"You bes talkin' of the coast 'round to the south o' Cape Race, sir. We bes all poor, honest folk hereabouts, sir."

"Oh, aye," returned the other, drily.

By this time all the men were ashore and the boat was high up on the shingle, out of reach of the surf. The men stood close around it. They were well-armed, and kept a sharp look-out on all sides.

"What do you call this place?" asked the officer.

"Why, sir, Frenchman's Cove bes its name," replied the skipper.

Frenchman's Cove lies three miles to the south of Nolan's Cove; but the skipper was cautious.

"Do you live here?"

"No, sir. There bain't no houses here. We bes four poor men from 'way to the nor'ard, sir, a-huntin' deer on the barrens. We was makin' camp 'way back inland, sir, when we heared yer guns a-firin'."

"How far away is the nearest village?"

"Why, sir, this country bes strange to me, but I's t'inkin' Nap Harbor wouldn't be more'n ten mile to the south, fair along the coast. Bes I right, Pete?"

"Aye, skipper, I be t'inkin' the same. Nap Harbor lays to the south, maybe ten mile along, maybe less," replied Peter Nolan, a cousin of the skipper's.

A second boat reached the shore and discharged its freight of humans and small packages and bundles. This boat contained four sailors and ten passengers. There were three women among the passengers. All were clutching bundles of clothing or small bags containing their personal possessions of value. One of the women was weeping hysterically.

"Could we get a passage 'round to St. John's from Nap Harbor?" asked the officer.

"Aye, sir, I bes sayin' ye could. Sure there bes a fore-and-after i' Nap Harbor," said Nolan.

"Will you guide us to Nap Harbor?"

"Aye, sir, that we will, an' glad to be o' sarvice to ye."

"We will pay you well, my good man," said one of the passengers, a tall gentleman with a very white and frightened face, draped in a very wet cloak. "In the meantime," he continued, "let us dry ourselves at these fires and have something hot to drink. Where are those stewards, the lazy dogs!"

Two more boats came from the ship to the shore without accident. In the last to arrive were the captain and the doctor. The company gathered round the fires, keeping their boxes and bags close to them. The stewards and sailors brewed hot punches for all. The lady with the hysterics was soothed to quiet by the doctor and a tiny mug of brandy and boiling water. The officers held a consultation and decided to get the passengers safely to Nap Harbor, and aboard a schooner for St. John's and then to return to Frenchman's Cove themselves and salve what they could of the cargo of the ship, which was evidently of unusual value. (Black Dennis Nolan had expected this.) They would get help in Nap Harbor for the work of salvage, and would leave the four boats on the beach, under a guard of five seamen and the third officer. They had brought food from the ship, and so they ate a substantial meal while they warmed themselves and discussed their plans. But Captain McTavish neither ate nor drank, so bitterly did he feel the loss of his ship. He feared that even the moderate sea now running would break her up within forty-eight hours.

Black Dennis Nolan vanished in the darkness many times in the furtherance of his task of gathering wood for the fires. At last, after he had covertly inspected all the bags, bundles and dispatch boxes, he disappeared in the surrounding gloom and did not reappear at all. Dick Lynch, a man of about his own size, shape and coloring,—one of the six who had taken cover on the hillside—the firelight in his stead, carrying a fragment of broken spar. The change was not noticed by the men from the wreck.

Dry, warmly clothed, and inwardly fortified with food and drink, the ship's company set off for Nap Harbor, carrying as much as they could of their portable possessions, and led by four of the honest fishermen of Chance Along. They left behind them the third mate, a sturdy youth armed with two pistols and a fowling-piece, and five sailors armed with cutlasses and pistols—and enough dry and liquid provisions to last the guard for several days. They climbed the steep and twisty path that connected the beach with the edge of the barren, and soon their lanterns were lost in the fog. The third mate and his men brewed another generous supply of rum punch, heaped more wood on the fire and lit their pipes. By the time each had emptied his tin mug for the third time all felt inexpressibly sleepy. Mr. Darling, the commander of the guard, counted his men with a waving forefinger, and an expression of owlish gravity on his round face. Then, "Daniel Berry, you'll stand the first trick," said he. "Keep a sharp look-out and report anything unusual. Silas Nixon will relieve you at eight bells of the middle watch."

So Daniel Berry got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled away from the fire; but five minutes after his companions began to snore he returned to his blankets by the fire and fell fast asleep. He would never have been guilty of such a crime at sea; but ashore it was quite a different matter. What was the use of a look-out ashore? The island of Newfoundland was not likely to strike a reef or an iceberg. So he sank deep into the slumber of the just and the intoxicated.

A dawn wind, blowing gently out of the west, began to thin and lift the dripping fog. Out from the dark that hedged in the fire crawled six vague shapes which, as they came into the illuminated zone, proved to be Black Dennis Nolan and five of his men of Chance Along with ropes in their hands. They stooped over the blanket-swathed sleepers, working quickly and cunningly with the ropes. They