Taffy was told off to help the westernmost gang and
search the rocks below the light-house. Once or twice he and his
comrades paused in their work, hearing, as they thought, a cry for
help. But when they listened, it was only one of the other parties
hailing.
The gale began to abate soon after midnight, and before dawn had
blown itself out. Day came, filtered slowly through the wrack of it
to the south-east; and soon they heard a whistle blown, and there on
the cliff above them was George Vyell on horseback, in his red coat,
with an arm thrown out and pointing eastward. He turned and galloped
off in that direction.
They scrambled up and followed. To their astonishment, after
following the cliffs for a few hundred yards, he headed inland, down
and across the very slope up which Taffy had crawled with the sailor.
They lost sight of his red coat among the ridges. Two or three--
Taffy amongst them--ran along the upper ground for a better view.
"Well, this beats all!" panted the foremost.
Below them George came into view again, heading now at full gallop
for a group of men gathered by the shore of the creek, a good
half-mile from its mouth. And beyond--midway across the sandy bed
where the river wound--lay the hull of a vessel, high and dry; her
deck, naked of wheelhouse and hatches, canted toward them as if to
cover from the morning the long wounds ripped by her uprooted masts.
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