to warn the church-folk first; and him a man of no faith, as you may
say. Hey? What's that? Dost see her, Zeb?"

For Zeb, with his right hand pressing down his cap, now suddenly flung
his left out in the direction of Bradden Point. Men and women craned
forward.

Below the distant promontory, a darker speck had started out of the
medley of grey tones. In a moment it had doubled its size--had become a
blur--then a shape. And at length, out of the leaden wrack, there
emerged a small schooner, with tall, raking masts, flying straight
towards them.

"Dear God!" muttered some one, while Ruby dug her finger-tips into Zeb's
arm.

The schooner raced under bare poles, though a strip or two of canvas
streamed out from her fore-yards. Yet she came with a rush like a
greyhound's, heeling over the whitened water, close under the cliffs,
and closer with every instant. A man, standing on any one of the points
she cleared so narrowly, might have tossed a pebble on to her deck.

"Hey, friends, but she'll not weather Gaffer's Rock. By crum! if she
does, they may drive her in 'pon the beach, yet!"

"What's the use, i' this sea? Besides, her steerin' gear's broke,"
answered Zeb, without moving his eyes.

This Gaffer's Rock was the extreme point of the opposite arm of the
cove--a sharp tooth rising ten feet or more above high-water mark.