220 HAUNTS OF THE SHEARWATER 



wards Lord Berkeley, the friend who had given Sir 

 Cloudesley the emerald and diamond ring, to possess 

 herself of which an old woman years afterwards said 

 on her deathbed that she had pushed him back, when 

 still living, into the water struck on the same ledge 

 as the admiral's ship, and was carried clean over it into 

 deep water on the other side by the same wave that 

 put out the lights, and with this extinguished the last 

 hope of the Association. 



The escape of the Isabella, a yacht attached to the 

 fleet, as told by her captain, was scarcely less narrow. 



' This 24 hours' hard gails of wind,' he writes in his 

 journal, still preserved in the Record Office, continued 

 ' until 10 at night, then the wether somewhat moderate. 

 At four in y e afternoon (of the 22nd) y e Admiral 

 brought to and sounded; we likewise sounded, and 

 had between 50 and 55 fathom water, a coarse sand 

 intermixt w th shells.' 



The sparkling mica sands, sprinkled with yellow 

 shells of every shade from pale primrose to deep 

 orange, are, for children especially, one of the chief 

 attractions of the Scillies. 



' We lay by till 6 foil, (following), at which time we 

 heard several guns fir'd to y e Sward of us, supposing 

 they had discovered danger ; at 8 at night saw y e light 

 of Scilly bearing S.E. by S. dist* per judgment about 

 4 miles. We took it to be one of our Admiral's lights ; 

 we steered after it till we perceaved it to be a fixed light, 

 it being very thick dark rainey wether, we perceived 

 y e rocks on both sides of us; we being very near to 



