Sound. You may see it at low tide, a ledge level as a paved causeway,
and God help the ship that strikes on it!"

Even while he spoke, from these undertones of sound there swelled
suddenly a great booming like a battery of cannon.

"It is the ledge cracking," said Mr. Wyeth, "and it cracks in the
calmest weather." With that, he closed the window, and, lighting his
pipe, resumed his story.

* * * * *

"It was on that reef that Mr. Robert Lovyes was wrecked. The ship, he
told us, was the schooner _Waking Dawn_, bound from Cardiff to Africa,
and she had run into the fog about half-past three, when they were a
mile short of the Seven Stones. She bumped twice on the reef, and sank
immediately, with, so far as he knew, all her crew.

"'So now,' Robert continued, tapping his belt, 'since I have the means
to pay, I will make bold to ask for a lodging, and for this night I
will hang up here my dripping garments to Neptune.'

"'Me tabula sacer
Votiva paries--'

"I began in the pride of my schooling, for I had learned that verse of
Horace but a week before.

"'This, no doubt, is the Cornish tongue,' he interrupted gravely, 'and
will you please to carry my boots outside?'