"Oh, sir! did 'ee see the rockets go up over Innis?
There'll be dead men down 'pon the Island rocks." Taffy slept on.

When he came downstairs next morning there was a stranger in the kitchen--a little old man, huddled in a blanket before the great fireplace, where a line of clothes hung drying.
Humility was stooping to wedge a sand-bag under the door.

She looked up at Taffy with a wan little smile.
"There has been a wreck," she said.
"Glory be!" exclaimed the stranger from the fire-place.
Taffy glanced at him, but could see little more than the back of a bald head above the blankets.
"Where's the ship ?" he asked.
"Gone," answered the Vicar, coming at that moment from the inner room where his books were.

"She must have broken up in less than ten minutes after she struck the Island--parted and gone down in six fathoms of water." "And the men?
Was father there ?" It bewildered Taffy that all this should have happened while he was sleeping.
"There was no time to fix the rocket apparatus.

She was late in making her distress signals.