138 



THE OPAL SEA 



Wrecks and 

 wreckers. 



The lost. 



Flotsam of 

 the wave. 



where tons and tons of stone have been broken 

 away and fallen into the sea. 



Perhaps far out upon the distant reef, where 

 the white caps are still showing, hung help- 

 lessly upon the sharp-fanged rocks, heeled over 

 on her side with masts and rigging all down, 

 is the battered hulk of a schooner that was 

 driven in by the wind the night before. The 

 little black speck that moves slowly about her 

 fore-foot is possibly a boat of a life-saving crew 

 that was unable to save during the storm, and 

 is now only making a perfunctory examination 

 of what remains. Perhaps again the little knot 

 of fisherfolk that is seen crowded together far 

 down the beach has found at the water's edge, 

 half buried in the sand, a cold form with a 

 frayed rope shirred about the waist, purplish 

 hands with torn finger nails, and a white face 

 with wet hair clinging about it as the tide went 

 out. Dead, quite dead ! Yes ; but what cares 

 the sea ! Captain or cabin-boy, prince or pau- 

 per, lover or hater, what cares the sea! 



The high-water line along the beach always 

 has its tale to tell, its report of accident, its 

 whisperings of disaster. Fragments of weed 

 and shell, wreckage of ship and sail, blocks, 

 planks, spars, boxes, flat corks, strange woods 

 — all the flotsam of the wave is there — flung 



