“Aye, skipper, aye—­but will the sailormen be a-totin’ their gear that a-way?” returned Bill.

“Sure, b’y, for I’ll tell ’em as we bes from Nap Harbor, an’ I’ll send four lads to show ’em the way.  After ye take their gear—­as much as ye kin get quick and easy—­they’ll follow ye along the path to try to catch ye,” replied Black Dennis Nolan.

Bill Brennen went up the twisty path to the barren, and along the edge of the cliff to the southward, followed by ten sturdy fellows armed with long clubs of birch-wood.  Of the nine men remaining with the skipper, six were sent, along with the gear, to hide behind the boulders and clumps of bush on the steep slope.  The skipper cautioned them to lie low and keep quiet.

“Ahoy, there!” bellowed the skipper.

“Ahoy!  Can’t you show a light?” came the reply, from the fog.

“Aye, aye, sir.  Bes ye on the rocks?”

“Lord, yes!  Show a light, man, for Heaven’s sake, so we can get the boat away.  Her back’s broken and her bows stove in.  She’s breaking up quick.”

The skipper and his three companions speedily made a small heap from the big pile of driftwood on the shingle, and lit it from the candle of a lantern.  They poured a tin of seal-oil over the dry wreckage, and the red and yellow flames shot up.  It was evident to the men on the land-wash that the unfortunate ship had escaped the outer menaces and won within a hundred yards of the shore before striking.  She was burning oil now, in vast quantities, to judge by the red glare that cut and stained the fog to seaward.

“What sort of channel?” came the question.

“Full o’ rocks, sir; but it bes safe enough wid caution,” cried the skipper.

“Can’t you show more light?”

“Aye, sir, there bes more wood.”

A second fire was built still closer to the edge of the tide than the first.

“Stand by to receive a line,” warned the masterful voice from the ship.

A rocket banged and a light line fell writhing across the beach.

“Haul her in and make fast the hawser.”

Black Dennis Nolan and his three companions were most obliging.  They pulled in the line until the wet hawser on the end of it appeared, and this they made fast to a rock on the beach as big as a house.

A small light appeared between the ship and the shore, blinking and vanishing low down on the pitching sea.  The glare from the fires on the land-wash presently discovered this to be an oil-lantern in the bows of a boat.  The boat, which contained about a dozen men, was being hand-hauled along the line that ran from the wreck to the shore.  Black Dennis Nolan and his companions exchanged glances at sight of drawn cutlasses and several rifles and pistols in the hands of the men from the wreck.  As the leading boat came within ten yards of the shore an officer stood up in her bows.  By this time the light of a second boat was blinking and vanishing in her wake.