Strange are the
instruments of Providence. There's a sort of poetical justice--"
The man in tweeds looked hard at me.
"The first ledge she went over stripped the false keel off her. Rip! The
skipper, rushing out of his berth, found a crazy woman, in a red flannel
dressing-gown, flying round and round the cuddy, screeching like a
cockatoo.
"The next bump knocked her clean under the cabin table. It also started
the stern-post and carried away the rudder, and then that brute ran up a
shelving, rocky shore, tearing her bottom out, till she stopped short,
and the foremast dropped over the bows like a gangway."
"Anybody lost?" I asked.
"No one, unless that fellow, Wilmot," answered the gentleman, unknown
to Miss Blank, looking round for his cap. "And his case was worse than
drowning for a man. Everybody got ashore all right. Gale didn't come
on till next day, dead from the West, and broke up that brute in a
surprisingly short time. It was as though she had been rotten at heart."
. . . He changed his tone, "Rain left off? I must get my bike and rush
home to dinner.
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