By and by the rain ceased, but there was no moon, and impenetrable wind-clouds still hid the stars.  Out through the blackness of the night the flame-light quivered in long, bright streams over the endless lines of ever-advancing waves, but revealed to the watchers no ship, no boat, no tokens even of wreck, only the ceaseless reaching upward of the beckoning white hands; and the wind bore no sound, save at intervals the dull distant boom of the cannon.  But ever the solemn surf thundered on the beach below, and the sand-cliff trembled and crumbled beneath its resounding blows.

The old man, who, with a seaman’s owl-like eyesight, kneeled intently gazing out through the darkness in the direction of the flash, suddenly exclaimed, “I don’t un’erstan’ it!  That air ship hadn’t oughter be in ’stress off where she is.  She ain’t on no shoal, nor nothin’.  She’s jest a-lyin’ tew.  An’ I don’t see no signs o’ no boats nuther; an’s fur’s I kin see, them folks is a firin’ off that air gun jest fur the musicalness on’t.  Blast ’em!  Come, gals:  we mought as well be walkin’ along hum as ter stop a-yawpin’ here in the wind an’ spray, a-burnin’ up the winter’s kindlin’ fur folks ‘at’s a-foolin’ on us.  ’Spesh’ly as I think she’s a Britisher.  Blast her!”

The old Quaker was not accustomed to use strong language of any sort, but evidently the human nature in him was so powerful in this instance that he could not help indulging in the most emphatic admissible invective.

But the mother and wife were not so easily satisfied.  In their eyes the strange ship and all on board her were not of as much consequence as the unworthy missing Jim, whose fate they associated with it.  Jim’s boat, they said, was gone.  No one could have taken her but Jim himself.  He would never have put out on such a night as this save to go to the help of the distressed ship; and if he was on the water, the light burning on Sankota Head would guide him safely back.  So, in the midst of spray and wind, the three kneeled on the cliff and kept the blaze alight till the rising dawn made it useless, when, to the dismay of the watchers, the ship hoisted sail and bore away.  She showed no colors, but the old islander, once a whaler, declared that she was a British man-o’-war.

But where was Jim?  The unanswering surf still boomed at the foot of the cliff, though the height of the waves was rapidly diminishing, and the water was gradually assuming the peculiarly bland expression that often comes after a storm, reminding one of the cat that has “eaten the canary,” but there was no sign of incoming boat or men.

Chilled to the bone with the wind and cold sea-spray of the November night, and to the heart with sorrow and disappointment, the three returned to the lonely house.  Running to meet them came Mary Allen, breathlessly crying, “Where’s Eben and Jim?”