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"That you're a set of smugglers, and, worse still, wreckers when you get a chance, and don't stop at robbery or murder. One of the fishermen I won't say his name said you were a regular gang of pirates." "The Rockabie fishermen are a set o' soft-headed fools," snarled the man. "But what do I care for all they say?
Although she chanced to have no money just at this time, she would have left the Ball homestead and Wreckers' Head and the town itself and walked so far away that nobody who knew her would ever see her again. She had thought of doing this even as far back as the time when she was so lonely and miserable in Boston.
"They got suspicious and left, taking the lantern with 'em!" There was no doubt about it, the wreckers were not there, and the indications were that they had betaken themselves to some other location. When the men flashed the pocket electric lamps they had brought with them, the little opening at the top of the cliff was well illuminated. "Nothing doing!" exclaimed Joe, regretfully.
She floated out to them, swaying and bowing, one hand clutched and fixed in the torn bosom of her dress, a pendant of gold and pearl swinging from each ear. A groan of wordless horror went up from the wreckers.
Once more they advanced until Joe and Blake recognized the place where they had been hiding, and whence they had looked into the open place where the wreckers had been putting up their false light. "It's here!" whispered Blake. "Just ahead there," added Joe. "Get ready, men!" exclaimed Tom Cardiff, in a tense whisper. "We'll rush 'em before they know it if they're here."
Every effort was made to get her off, but in vain. The noise of the cannonading brought out nine gun-boats; and then, as if by magic, swarms of wreckers slipped by the inner edge of the shore, stole from some rocky inlet, or rushed from mole and galley, and keeping beyond range, like vultures near a battle-field, awaited the surrender of the ship.
"You have some cursed bad men in those Shetland Isles," said the sailor, with all the energy he could command. "Hanging is too good for wreckers; they should be roasted at the false fires they light for poor seafaring men's destruction." Yaspard stared his astonishment. "I never heard the like!" he ejaculated. "Wreckers! Why, there isn't one left in Shetland. Not one, I am sure. What do you mean?"
"I say," said Ford, "are there men there all the while? Are there many wrecks on this coast?" "Ever so many wrecks," said Dab, "and they keep a sharp lookout. There used to be more before there were so many light-houses. It was a bad place to go ashore in, too, almost as bad as Jersey." "Why?" "Well, the coast itself is mean enough, for shoals and surf; and then there were the wreckers." "Oh!
It is all a part of their plan to set one of us against the other, letting us fight many small wars and so use up our men while they take no risks. They wait the day when we shall be exhausted and then they will reveal themselves to claim all they wish. So today they stir up trouble between the Wreckers and the Foanna, knowing that the Foanna are few.
The heavy dropping of the water struck upon his ear like the fall of leaden bullets. He stood paralyzed yet fascinated. A shudder colder than spray from his garments shook his form from head to foot; and, turning, he fled down the stairs again out upon the beach, and helped the wreckers to haul in their plunder, till he fell utterly exhausted on the sands.
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