Part 40 (2/2)

The poor man gave a confused and rambling account of the circ.u.mstances of the wreck, but it was sufficiently intelligible to make the captain acquainted with the leading particulars.

”Were there many of your comrades aboard?” he enquired. The dying man looked up with a vacant expression. It was evident that he did not quite understand the question, but he began again to mutter in a partly incoherent manner.

”They're all gone,” said he, ”every man of 'em but me! All tied together in the hold. They cast us loose, though, after she struck.

All gone! all gone!”

After a moment he seemed to try to recollect something.

”No,” said he, ”we weren't all together. They took Ruby on deck, and I never saw _him_ again. I wonder what they did--”

Here he paused.

”Who, did you say?” enquired the captain with deep anxiety.

”Ruby--Ruby Brand,” replied the man.

”What became of him, said you?”

”Don't know.”

”Was _he_ drowned?”

”Don't know,” repeated the man.

The captain could get no other answer from him, so he was compelled to rest content, for the poor man appeared to be sinking.

A sort of couch had been prepared for him, on which he was carried into the town, but before he reached it he was dead. Nothing more could be done that night, but next day, when the tide was out, men were lowered down the precipitous sides of the fatal bay, and the bodies of the unfortunate seamen were sent up to the top of the cliffs by means of ropes. These ropes cut deep grooves in the turf, as the bodies were hauled up one by one and laid upon the gra.s.s, after which they were conveyed to the town, and decently interred.

The spot where this melancholy wreck occurred is now pointed out to the visitor as ”The Seamen's Grave”, and the young folk of the town have, from the time of the wreck, annually recut the grooves in the turf, above referred to, in commemoration of the event, so that these grooves may be seen there at the present day.

It may easily be imagined that poor Captain Ogilvy returned to Arbroath that night with dark forebodings in his breast.

He could not, however, imagine how Ruby came to be among the men on board of the French prize; and tried to comfort himself with the thought that the dying sailor had perhaps been a comrade of Ruby's at some time or other, and was, in his wandering state of mind, mixing him up with the recent wreck.

As, however, he could come to no certain conclusion on this point, he resolved not to tell what he had heard either to his sister or Minnie, but to confine his anxieties, at least for the present, to his own breast.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

OLD FRIENDS IN NEW CIRc.u.mSTANCES.

Let us now return to Ruby Brand; and in order that the reader may perfectly understand the proceedings of that bold youth, let us take a glance at the Bell Rock Lighthouse in its completed condition.

We have already said that the lower part, from the foundation to the height of thirty feet, was built of solid masonry, and that at the top of this solid part stood the entrance-door of the building--facing towards the south.

The position of the door was fixed after the solid part had been exposed to a winter's storms. The effect on the building was such that the most sheltered or lee-side was clearly indicated; the weather-side being thickly covered with limpets, barnacles, and short green seaweed, while the lee-side was comparatively free from such incrustations.

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