"What followed seemed to me then the strangest part of all this
business, though, indeed, our sea-fogs come and go as often as not
with a like abruptness. But the time of this fog's dispersion shocked
the mind as something pitiless and arbitrary. For had the air cleared
an hour before, the _Waking Dawn_ would not have struck. I opened the
door, and it was as though a panel of brilliant white was of a sudden
painted on the floor. Robert Lovyes sprang up from the settle, ran
past me into the open, and stood on the bracken in his stockinged
feet. A little patch of fog still smoked on the shining beach of Tean;
a scarf of it was twisted about the granite bosses of St. Helen's; and
for the rest the moonlight sparkled upon the headlands and was spilled
across miles of placid sea. There was a froth of water upon the Golden
Ball, but no sign of the schooner sunk among its weeds.

"My father, however, and the two boatmen hurried down to the shore,
while I was despatched with the news to Merchant's Point. My mother
asked Mr. Lovyes his name, that I might carry it with me. But he spoke
in a dreamy voice, as though he had not heard her.

"'There were eight of the crew. Four were below, and I doubt if the
four on deck could swim.'

"I ran off on my errand, and, coming back a little later with a bottle
of cordial waters, found Mr. Lovyes still standing in the moonlight.
He seemed not to have moved a finger. I gave him the bottle, with a
message that any who were rescued should be carried to Merchant's
Point forthwith, and that he himself should go down there in the
morning.