"Percivale," I exclaimed, "the gates are gone; the sea has torn them away."

"Yes, I suppose so. Would God I could get half-a-dozen men to help me. I
have been doing what I could; but I have no influence amongst them."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "What could you do if you had a thousand men
at your command?"

He made me no answer for a few moments, during which we were hurrying on
for the bridge over the canal. Then he said:

"They regard me only as a meddling stranger, I suppose; for I have been
able to get no useful answer. They are all excited; but nobody is doing
anything."

"They must know about it a great deal better than we," I returned; "and we
must take care not to do them the injustice of supposing they are not ready
to do all that can be done."

Percivale was silent yet again.

The record of our conversation looks as quiet on the paper as if we had
been talking in a curtained room; but all the time the ocean was raving in
my very ear, and the awful tragedy was going on in the dark behind us. The
wind was almost as loud as ever, but the rain had quite ceased, and when we
reached the bridge the moon shone out white, as if aghast at what she had
at length succeeded in pushing the clouds aside that she might see. Awe
and helplessness oppressed us. Having crossed the canal, we turned to the
shore. There was little of it left; for the waves had rushed up almost to
the village. The sand and the roads, every garden wall, every window that