“God comfort you, Eric,” said Madeleine, tenderly, as she wiped away her tears.  “God comfort you.  No words of mine can help to heal this wound.”

“Thank you, Miss,” said Eric.  “I see you feel for us, and that helps—­better than words, sometimes.”

CHAPTER X.

IN THE STORM.

The next morning, as Howard and Martin were coming up from the beach, where they had been taking a swim, they saw Maurice and Eric standing on the edge of a cliff looking out seaward, and they had not walked far before Eric came hastily toward them.

“You’ve never seen a Shetland storm, young gentlemen,” he said, “but you may see one to-day and to-morrow, too, for I doubt if you will get away from here as soon as you expected.  I see the ladies coming out; it might be well to go and tell them.”

“Come along, Madeleine!  Hurry, Ethel!” cried Martin; “you will soon see the sight we have longed for—­a storm at sea.  Eric says there is one brewing.”

The ladies looked incredulous, and Mr. Morton put on his double eye-glasses, and looked around with the air of one who more than half suspects he is being taken in.

It was a still, lovely summer morning.  The sea was as calm as a village brook; the waves lazily played upon the shore, and the breeze scarcely stirred the little flag which Eric had mounted on his boat in honor of the visitors.

Presently, however, the dark clouds came up in rapid procession; the surf began to sigh and moan; the sea-fowls caught the sound, and cried as they only cry when the ocean is angry.  The boats lying out hoisted sail and scudded away for the nearest haven of shelter.  Then a white line of light rose up sharply against the black bank of clouds, and the still sea became covered with white-crested waves.  The quiet shore rang again with the booming of waters, as they leapt against the rocks and broke in foaming spray.

It was a grand sight.  The whole aspect of sea and sky and land had changed.

Ole, Maurice and Eric had withdrawn from the party of visitors and were standing on an eminence, talking earnestly, and looking out to sea with such evident anxiety, that Howard and Martin clambered up to them to hear what was the matter.

“Well, sir, you see that ship out there, we can’t make her out,” said Maurice.  “We’ve watched her for an hour, and she hasn’t shifted an inch of sail.”

“I don’t see her at all,” said Howard.  “Do you, Martin?”

No, Martin could not, because he had not that wonderfully acute sight which the discipline of constant experience gives to seamen.

However, with the aid of a glass he saw her clearly, and was seaman enough to know that she was playing a dangerous game in carrying so much canvas in such a gale.

“And what’s the strangest part of all is, that she’s making straight for rocks, if she keeps the same course,” said Ole.