CHAPTER III.
THE STRANGER.
As the ship struck, night closed down again, and her agony, sharp or lingering, was blotted out.

There was no help possible; no arm that could throw across the three hundred yards that separated her from the cliffs; no swimmer that could carry a rope across those breakers; nor any boat that could, with a chance of life, put out among them.

Now and then a dull crash divided the dark hours, but no human cry again reached the shore.
Day broke on a grey sea still running angrily, a tired and shivering group upon the beach, and on the near side of the Raney a shapeless fragment, pounded and washed to and fro--a relic on which the watchers could in their minds re-build the tragedy.
The Raney presents a sheer edge to seaward--an edge under which the first vessel, though almost grazing her side, had driven in plenty of water.

Shorewards, however, it descends by gradual ledges.
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.