looked seaward was crowded with gazers. But it was a wonderfully quiet
crowd, or seemed so at least; for the noise of the wind and the waves
filled the whole vault, and what was spoken was heard only in the ear to
which it was spoken. When we came amongst them we heard only a murmur as of
more articulated confusion. One turn, and we saw the centre of strife and
anxiety--the heart of the storm that filled heaven and earth, upon which
all the blasts and the billows broke and raved.

Out there in the moonlight lay a mass of something whose place was
discernible by the flashing of the waves as they burst over it. She was far
above low-water mark--lay nearer the village by a furlong than the spot
where we had taken our last dinner on the shore. It was strange to think
that yesterday the spot lay bare to human feet, where now so many men and
women were isolated in a howling waste of angry waters; for the cry of
women came plainly to our ears, and we were helpless to save them. It was
terrible to have to do nothing. Percivale went about hurriedly, talking to
this one and that one, as if he still thought something might be done. He
turned to me.

"Do try, Mr. Walton, and find out for me where the captain of the life-boat
is."

I turned to a sailor-like man who stood at my elbow and asked him.

"It's no use, I assure you, sir," he answered; "no boat could live in such
a sea. It would be throwing away the men's lives."

"Do you know where the captain lives?" Percivale asked.

"If I did, I tell you it is of no use."