But the little landlady could give no details.

"I shall go out and see," he said, rising.
"One might give a little advice. The French
are so dull in everything about the sea. I shall
be back in half an hour."

He went out. Lucy sat at the window. Half
an hour went by, and he did not return. What
was the meaning of this? There was no one to
ask; for the whole town had gone up to the port.

As Vivian was going down to the port,
he fell in with three sailors, whose dress,
build, and bearing told him they were
English seamen. They were coming out of the
Nancy Baker, of Hull, who had brought coals
for a factory that was some way from the town.
They had just returned, and were going up where
all the world were going. Vivian spoke to one,
who proved to be the mate, a quiet, stolid
young fellow, of about five-and-thirty, and whom
he heard the men call John Davy. Davy said
it was going to be a poor business, he was afeard.

They went along the wooden pier, past the
large crucifix more than seven feet high, all gilt
and painted, set up by the fishermen, and round
whose foot was a whole cluster of praying women.
Was there not here Jean's sister—he was in the
Hélène—and Paul's wife, and many more
distracted creatures, and the captain's own wife, the
most collected and confident of them all, looking
out, with her hands shading her eyes, to that eternal
sheet of dull terrible slate, which was now
and again lit up with flashes of white? There
was a fringe of eager, painful faces, bent
forward and looking out into the storm, with
clasped hands and strained eyes, thus getting into
the front. The present state of things was this:
The brig was in a poor way, indeed, for
there it lay, not two hundred yards away,
grounded on the flat Dieppe shore, the bathers'
paradise—a miserable black tenement, now
visible, now swallowed up and devoured by an
overwhelming rush of waves, which, when they
retired, showed a black ragged mast and a few
figures like flies hanging on it. At every
disappearance there was a shriek and a wail from
the shore; at every reappearance another cry and
wail. "Oh, they will save them—they must save
them!" Colonel Vivian heard some one say
confidently, as they came up.

But these attempts were of the feeblest
sort. They had tried to launch a boat,
though no one had volunteered to go in it,
and it was smashed into firewood at one crash
against the pier. "It is hopeless—it is
madness," said the French sailors, gloomily
pointing to the fragments. Others had brought
a rope to the cliffs, and were going through a
laborious show of flinging it out. There were
preparations of the same description being
made with the same elaborate show, and to an
enormous amount of gesticulation and chatter.
John Davy gave one rapid glance up and down,
took all—in the broken boat, the ropes—"with
half an eye," and said aloud:

"Well, of all the Jack-a-donkeys I ever see!
Why, they might as well throw them out a
spool of cotton!"

There was an official air over the whole, also,
for here were gendarmes and the mayor fussing
about and directing, though there was nothing
to be directed, and taking notes for the "verbal
process" of the whole, which he would address
to the prefect.

"Why," said Davy, "the men'll be lost afore
their eyes while they are busy with their pack-
thread. There's another of 'em off. I give 'em
twenty minutes, and where will they be?"

"In God's name!" cried Vivian, growing
excited, "can nothing be done? You are
English sailors—I'll do what I can, if I only
knew the way."

"Bill!" said Davy to his mate. "Our big
boat might do it. I wouldn't be afraid to put
her to it. We might coax her along 'tween
the piers. She's broad and bluff enough; but
there's only three on us."

"Well, I'll go too," said Vivian, growing more
and more excited. "I could pull an oar with
any man."

In a moment Vivian was explaining to the
mayor what they were going to try. In a very
few moments more nearly every one there knew
that the brave Englishmen were going to do
something—something, as the French there
understood by instinct, that was very likely to
succeed: for they had much confidence in the
gifts of the islanders.

In another moment Davy and his mates were
running to the Nancy Baker, had cast off her
dirty, clumsy, broad, but serviceable boat, and
had paddled, still within shelter of the pier, to
a ladder which led down to the water.

"Now, my hearties," cried Davy from his
boat, "who'll volunteer? There's room for two
more."

Vivian, standing at the top of the ladder,
hurriedly explained to the mayor what was
wanted. The fishermen, the women, were all
crowding on them, chatting, praying, pointing.
The mayor turned to them, and began leisurely,
and with a sort of dramatic gesture, to
address them:

"Messieurs——"

But the Englishmen interrupt him bluntly—
Davy with the oath of his country, and Vivian
with:

"Encore deux places!" And he pointed
below to the boat.

There was a death-like stillness, not a motion
nor a sound.

"You are brave Frenchmen! We are four
English about to try and save your countrymen.
We cannot do it alone. You will help
us, I know?"

There was another pause, a fresh stillness.

"Cowards!" said Davy from the boat. "I
thought they were better men."

"Then we go alone," said Vivian, and turned
to descend.

But they were not cowards. A dozen fishermen
had rushed forward.

Vivian felt a light hand on his arm, and looked
round, astonished.