Beguiled by the bonfire, or mistaking Ruby's lantern for the tossing
stern-light of a comrade, the second ship had charged full-tilt on the
reef and hung herself upon it, as a hunter across a fence. Before she
could swing round, her back was broken; her stern parted, slipped back
and settled in many fathoms; while the fore-part heaved forwards,
toppled down the reef till it stuck, and there was slowly brayed into
pieces by the seas. The tide had swept up and ebbed without dislodging
it, and now was almost at low-water mark.

"'May so well go home to breakfast," said Elias Sweetland, grimly, as he
took in what the uncertain light could show.

"Here, Young Zeb, look through my glass," sang out Farmer Tresidder,
handing the telescope. He had been up at the vicarage drinking hot grog
with the parson and the rescued men, when Sim Udy ran up with news of
the fresh disaster; and his first business on descending to the Cove had
been to pack Ruby and Mary Jane off to bed with a sound rating. Parson
Babbage had descended also, carrying a heavy cane (the very same with
which he broke the head of a Radical agitator in the bar of the "Jolly
Pilchards," to the mild scandal of the diocese), and had routed the rest
of the women and chastised the drunken. The parson was a remarkable
man, and looked it, just now, in spite of the red handkerchief that
bound his hat down over his ears.

"Nothing alive there--eh?"

Young Zeb, with a glass at his left eye, answered--

"Nothin' left but a frame o' ribs, sir, an' the foremast hangin' over,
so far as I can see; but 'tis all a raffle o' spars and riggin' close