The Red Warder Of The Reef by John Arthur Barry

The Marine Board of Port Endeavor, the capital and chief harbor of Cooksland, had for a long time turned a deaf ear to petitions presented by many shipmasters, coasting and foreign, that the Cat and Kittens reef should be either bell-buoyed or lit from a stationary vessel. The Board's contention was that, as the Point Mangrove Light, in addition to its chief duty, also threw a green ray between the bearings of S. ¾ W. and S.S.E., four cables east of the reef, such was ample warning to enable vessels to clear the dangerous Cat and her family.

Two brigs, and a coasting schooner had already come to grief on the just awash rocks. Skippers and mates had lost their certificates, and some their lives; and all the survivors swore to the absence of "the green ray." But as the Board knew it must have been there, the excuse availed nothing.