That same night the change we had been expecting came on us, and a storm raged furiously till the dawn. Sometimes, but very occasionally, a summer gale will carry as much weight in it as one of its winter brethren. And, when this is so, it works far wider damage both by sea and land. It will catch our seamen, unprepared and unsuspecting, on a lee shore of dangerous approach, with some headland or cape to windward that bars their only path to safety.

Less dangerous it may be to dwellers on the shore, but not less dreaded. For it destroys, almost in a moment, the wealth of emerald foliage which Nature in her thriftiness had meant to last for six long months, to perish gradually in greater glory still of gold and scarlet, orange and russet-brown. And then one morning she wakes to find her handiwork destroyed, at a time when it is just too late for her to repair the damage. Nothing left of all she has been secretly and silently creating through the long months of winter, except a few torn and tattered leaves, which she will make all speed she can to discard, seeing that theirs can only be a discredited old age of uniform withered brown.

It was over a foreground like this that I looked seawards that morning.

Under my bedroom window two men were talking. “Aye, she’s done for,” said one of them; “it won’t be more than half-an-hour before she strikes. With only a rag of canvas upon her, and one of her masts gone, he’d better give it up and put her on shore as soon as he can find a quiet place. Though, for the matter of that, one place is no better than another, so far as their chance of saving her goes.”

“That’s just what he’s doing,” his neighbour answered. “Don’t you see he’s trying to push her along just outside the breakers till he can bring her about opposite the coastguard station, and then he’ll shove her on shore. I can see them watching and waiting for her; and they’ve got the rockets ready on the beach.” And they moved off quickly in the direction of their gaze.

Long before our party, which included the Squire and Marion, had reached the scene of the disaster, the busiest part of the proceedings was over. When she first struck, a heavy sea had canted her round and laid her broadside to the shore, where she lay, heaving and groaning like some living creature, under the weight of the seas as they struck her and then flung themselves over her in sheets of foam.

A rocket had carried a guiding rope well across the wreck and into the hands of the crew. Having secured it to the one remaining mast, they had attached the travelling cradle, and, as we came upon the scene, were one by one escaping to the shore.

Not a minute too soon. For the seas were growing heavier with the rising of the tide, and as each one struck her, the ship shuddered through all her length, while jets of foam that burst up through her decks showed that her timbers were yielding to the strain. Even as we stood watching her she rose on the top of a huge breaker, and, as she settled down again upon the bottom, her sole remaining mast cracked and fell, and with it went the rope and cradle that had wrought the safety of the crew.Another moment, and, above the rush of wind and water, the plaintive howl of a dog reached us from the deck. A large black retriever had been fastened to the mast, and in the hurry and confusion of their own escape the crew had forgotten to loose him. He had waited most patiently, poor beast, while the crew were saving themselves, waited in the belief that his own turn would come at last. And all the while he had never uttered a sound, though the seas that swept over the wreck must almost have drowned or strangled him.

But now that he felt he was abandoned by the crew, fear had fallen on him, which became panic when the mast to which he was tethered crashed down at his side, leaving only the stump standing to which he had been chained. We could see him struggling violently as the seas swept over him, while now and again he uttered a piteous howl, looking appealingly landwards as if to call attention to his despair. His terror wrought painfully on all our hearts. It was no sight for a woman to see, and I shuddered to think that Marion was there to see it.

“Oh! it’s too cruel,” she cried. “Will no one, no one save him? I would give anything to see him safe.”

“Anything? really anything?” I asked, bending my head to hers, for the roar of wind and water made speech and hearing difficult.

She looked me steadily in the face, as if trying to read my meaning in my eyes. And then her own eyes fell before mine. “Yes, anything,” she said, and the word came to me like an echo of the question I had asked her, “anything that friend may claim and I can give.”

It may be that her answer determined me though I think I should have tried it, even without the incentive she had given. It was intolerable to see the poor brute drowning before our eyes without an effort being made to save him, especially when he had faced the danger so bravely, while he had watched us rescuing the crew and felt there was still a chance for him of life. Only, if it was to be done at all, I saw it must be quickly done. Each sea as it came in was higher than the last, and a seam that had opened in her side towards us showed us that the ship was going fast.

My only chance, I saw, was to follow a spent wave and gain the deck if possible before the next one broke on her. It was all in my favour that she lay broadside to the shore, for her bulk acted as a breakwater against the sea, making it fairly calm water on the side of her that faced us. This would save me, I saw, from the worst danger of all, that of being carried out to sea by the retreating wave, though it brought with it another and almost graver peril in the risk that I might be caught and crushed against her side by the force of its retreat.

In any case now, if ever, my muscular training must stand me in good stead. First of all I wound a rope about me, leaving the shore-end of it in the hands of the coastguards, as I relied on their help to ensure my safety in case I should be overpowered by the rush of the retiring wave. Then I watched and waited my time while one, two, three seas broke over her; but none of them retreated far enough to serve my purpose. The fourth was the heaviest of all, and when it had spent itself, retreated further in proportion. Seizing the opportunity, I dashed through the lake of foam that lay between us and the wreck, and, grasping a rope that hung adrift over her side, and which I had long marked as my one hope on the chance of its being well secured at the further end, I swung myself by means of it up and on to the deck.Only just in time; for as I landed on the deck a plank broke loose at my feet, through which I saw that her whole side seawards was gone, and that the cargo had nearly all washed out of her. The next blow, I saw, would finish her. So, loosing the dog and dropping him over the side, I hung for a moment while the wave surged round me before I lowered myself. And on the calm that followed the wave’s retreat the watchers drew me to the shore. And then, with a crash that echoed high above the storm, she parted amidships, and the sea poured in volumes through the rent in the severed hull.

I walked straight to the place where Marion was sitting with the dog at her feet.

A word of thanks—no more. But it satisfied me, for a light had sprung into her eyes that told me I had won her love.