The ‘Blessed if I ever see such a rig—nor such lines neither,’ old Hawkhurst said. It was a late afternoon, wild and grey. Slate-coloured clouds drove across the sky like flocks of hurried camels. The waves were purple and blue, and in the west a streak of unnatural-looking green light was all that stood for the splendours of sunset. ‘She do be a rum ’un,’ said young Benenden, who had strolled along the beach with the glasses the gentleman gave him for saving the little boy from drowning. ‘Don’t know as I ever see another just like her.’ ‘I’d give half a dollar to any chap as can tell me where she hails from—and what port [p28it is where they has ships o’ that cut,’ said middle-aged Haversham to the group that had now gathered. [p 28 ‘George!’ exclaimed young Benenden from under his field-glasses, ‘she’s going.’ And she went. Her bow went down suddenly and she stood stern up in the water—like a duck after rain. Then quite slowly, with no unseemly hurry, but with no moment’s change of what seemed to be her fixed purpose, the ship sank and the grey rolling waves wiped out the place where she had been. Now I hope you will not expect me to tell you anything more about this ship—because there is nothing more to tell. What country she came from, what port she was bound for, what cargo she carried, and what kind of tongue her crew spoke—all these things are dead secrets. And a dead secret is a secret that nobody knows. No other secrets are dead secrets. Even I do not know this one, or I would tell you at once. For I, at least, have no secrets from you. [opp p28]Her bow went down suddenly. [ opp p28 ] When ships go down off Dungeness, things from them have a way of being washed up on the sands of that bay which curves from Dungeness to Folkestone, where the sea has bitten a piece out of the land—just such a half-moon-shaped piece as you bite out of a slice of [p29bread-and-butter. Bits of wood tangled with ropes—broken furniture—ships’ biscuits in barrels and kegs that have held brandy—seamen’s chests—and sometimes sadder things that we will not talk about just now. [p
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