“They are both forgiven, my dear madam, when so lovely an advocate pleads their cause,” said the Pocomokian grandiloquently, bowing low, his hand on his chest. “Thank you; I will join you,” and leaned over Sanford as he spoke, and lighted a cigar in the blue flame of the tiny silver lamp.
“Sanford ... raised her hand to his lips”
“Sanford ... raised her hand to his lips”
“Sanford ... raised her hand to his lips”
It was delightful to note how the coming alliance of the Hardy and Slocomb families had developed the paternal, not to say patriarchal attitude of the major toward his once boon companion. He already regarded Jack as his own son,—somebody to lean upon in his declining years, a prop and a staff for his old age. He had even sketched out in his mind a certain stately mansion on the avenue, to say nothing of a series of country-seats,—one on Crab Island in the Chesapeake,—all with porticoes and an especial suite of rooms on the ground floor; and he could hear Jack say, as he pointed them out to his visitors, “These are for my dear old friend Major Slocomb of Pocomoke,—member of my wife’s family.” He could see his old enemy, Jefferson, Jack’s servant, cowed into respectful obedience by the new turn in his master’s affairs, in which the Pocomokian had lent so helpful a hand.
“She is the child of my old age, so to speak, suh, and I, of co’se, gave my consent after great hesitation,” he would frequently say, fully persuading himself that Helen had really sought his approbation, and never for one moment dreaming that, grateful as she was to him for his chaperonage of her while in New York, he was the last person in the world she would have consulted in any matter so vital to her happiness.
Jack accepted the change in the major’s manner with the same good humor that seasoned everything that came to him in life. He had known the Pocomokian for too many years to misunderstand him now, and this new departure, with its patronizing airs and fatherly oversight, only amused him.
Mrs. Leroy had drawn the young girl toward the divan, and was already discussing her plans for the summer.
“Of course you are both to come to me this fall, when the beautiful Indian summer weather sets in. The Pines is never so lovely as then. You shall sail to your heart’s content, for the yacht is in order; and we will then see what this great engineer has been doing all summer,” she added, glancing timidly from under her dark eyelashes at Sanford. “Mr. Leroy’s last instructions were to keep the yacht in commission until he came home. I am determined you shall have one more good time, Miss Helen, before this young man ties you hand and foot. You will come, major?”
“I cannot promise, madam. It will depend entirely on my arrangin’ some very important matters of business. I hope to be able to come for perhaps a day or so.”
Jack looked at Sanford and smiled. Evidently Mrs. Leroy did not know the length of the major’s “day or so.” Nor that it was apt to depend upon the date of the next invitation. He was still staying with Jack, and had been there since the spring.
Buckles, the butler, had been bending over the major as that gentleman delivered himself of this announcement of his hopes. When he had filled to the brim the tiny liqueur glass, the major—perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness—said, “Thank you, suh,” at which Buckles’s face hardened. Such slips were not infrequent. The major was, in fact, always a little uncomfortable in Buckles’s presence. Jack, who had often noticed his attitude, thought that these conciliatory remarks were intended as palliatives to the noiseless English flunky with the immovable face and impenetrable manner. The Pocomokian never extended such deference to Sam, Sanford’s own servant, or even to Jefferson. “Here, Sam, you black scoundrel, bring me my hat,” he would say whenever he was leaving Sanford’s apartments, at which Sam’s face would relax quite as much as Buckles’s had hardened. But then the major knew Sam’s kind, and Sam knew the major, and, strange to say, believed in him.
When Buckles had retired, Sanford started the Pocomokian on a discussion in which all the talking would fall to the latter’s share. Mrs. Leroy turned to Helen and Jack again. There was no trace, in her voice nor on her features, of the emotion that had so stirred her. All that side of her nature had been shut away the moment her guests appeared.
“Don’t mind a word Jack says to you, my dear, about hurrying up the wedding-day,” she laughed, in a half-earnest and altogether charming way,—not cynical, but with a certain undercurrent of genuine anxiety in her voice, all the more keenly felt by Sanford, who waited on every word that fell from her lips. “Put it off as long as possible. So many troubles and disappointments come afterwards, and it is so hard to keep everything as it should be. There is no happier time in life than that just before marriage. Oh, you needn’t scowl at me, you young Bluebeard; I know all about it, and you don’t know one little bit.”
Helen looked at Jack in some wonder. She was at a loss to know how much of the talk was pure badinage, and how much, perhaps, the result of some bitter worldly experience. The young girl shuddered, yet without knowing what inspired the remark or what lay behind it. But she laughed quite heartily, as she said, “It is all true, no doubt; only I intend to begin by being something of a tyrant myself, don’t I, Jack?”
Before Jack could reply, Smearly, who had hurried by Buckles, entered unannounced, and with a general smile of recognition, and two fingers to the major, settled himself noiselessly in an easy-chair, and reached over the silver tray for a cup. It was a house where such freedom was not commented on, and Smearly was one of those big Newfoundland-dog kind of visitors who avail themselves of all privileges.
“What is the subject under discussion?” the painter asked, as he dropped a lump of sugar into his cup and turned to his hostess.
“I have just been telling Miss Shirley how happy she will make us when she comes to The Pines this autumn.”
“And you have consented, of course?” he inquired carelessly, lifting his bushy eyebrows.
“Oh yes,” answered Helen, a faint shadow settling for a moment on her face. “It’s so kind of Mrs. Leroy to want me. You are coming, too, are you not, Mr. Sanford?” and she moved toward Henry’s end of the divan, where Jack followed her. She had never liked Smearly. She did not know why, but he always affected her strangely. “He looks like a bear,” she once told Jack, “with his thick neck and his restless movements.”
“Certainly, Miss Helen, I am going, too,” replied Sanford. “I tolerate my work all summer in expectation of these few weeks in the autumn.”
The young girl raised her eyes quickly. Somehow it did not sound to her like Sanford’s voice. There was an unaccustomed sense of strain in it. She moved a little nearer to him, however, impelled by some subtle sympathy for the man who was not only Jack’s friend, but one she trusted as well.
“Lovely to be so young and hopeful, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Leroy to Smearly, with a movement of her head toward Helen. “Look at those two. Nothing but rainbows for her and Jack.”
“Rainbows come after the storm, my dear lady, not before,” rejoined Smearly. “If they have any prismatics in theirs, they will appear in a year or two from now.” He had lowered his voice so that Helen should not hear.
“You never believe in anything. You hate women,” said Mrs. Leroy impatiently in an undertone.
“True, but with some exceptions; you, for instance,” with a mock bow. “But why fool ourselves, my dear lady? The first year is one of sugar-plums, flowers, and canary-birds. We can’t keep our hands off them; we love them so we want to eat them up.”
“Just like any other wild beast,” interrupted Mrs. Leroy, with a gurgling laugh, her head bent coquettishly on one side.
“The second year both are pulling in opposite directions.” (He affected not to have heard her thrust.) “Then comes a snap of the matrimonial cord, and over they go. Of course neither of these two turtle-doves has the slightest idea of anything of the kind. They expect to go on and on and on, like the dear little babes in the wood; but they won’t, all the same. Some day an old crow of an attorney will come and cover them over with dried briefs, and that will be the last of it.”
Sanford took no part in the general talk. He was listless, absorbed. He felt an irresistible desire to be alone, and stayed on only because Helen’s many little confidences, told to him in her girlish way, as she sat beside him on the divan, required but an acquiescing nod now and then, or a random reply, which he could give without betraying himself.
He was first of all the guests to rise. In response to Mrs. Leroy’s anxious glance, as he bade her good-night between the veranda curtains, he explained, in tones loud enough to be heard by everybody, that it was necessary to make an early start in the morning for the Ledge, and that he had some important letters to write that night.
“Don’t forget to telegraph me if you get the certificate,” was all she said.
Helen and Jack followed Sanford. They too wanted to be alone; that is, together,—in their case the same thing.
Once outside and under the trees of the park, Helen stopped in a secluded spot, their shadows under the electric light flecking the pavement, took the lapels of Jack’s coat in her hands, and said, “Jack, dear, I wasn’t happy there to-night. She never could have loved anybody.”
“Who, darling?”
“Why, Mrs. Leroy. Did you hear what she said?”
“Yes, but it was only Kate. That’s her way, Helen. She never means half she says.”
“Yes, but thewayshe said it, Jack. She doesn’t know what love means. Loving is not being angry all the time. Loving is helping,—helping everywhere and in everything. Whatever either needs the other gives. I can’t say it just as I want to, but you know what I mean. And that Mr. Smearly; he didn’t think I heard, but I did.”
“Dear heart,” said Jack, smoothing her cheek with his hand, “don’t believe everything you hear. You are not accustomed to the ways of these people. Down in your own home in Maryland people mean what they say; here they don’t. Smearly is all right. He was ‘talking through his hat,’ as the boys say at the club,—that’s all. You’d think, to hear him go on, that he was a sour, crabbed old curmudgeon, now, wouldn’t you? Well, you never were more mistaken in your life. Every penny he can save he gives to an old sister of his, who hasn’t seen a well day for years. That’s only his talk.”
“But why does he speak that way, then? When people love as they ought to love, every time a disappointment in the other comes, it is just one more opportunity to help,—not a cause for ridicule. I love you that way, Jack; don’t you love me so?” and she looked up into his eyes.
“I love you a million ways, you sweet girl,” and, with a rapid glance about him to see that no one was near, he slipped his arm about her and held her close to his breast.
He felt himself lifted out of the atmosphere of romance in which he had lived for months. This gentle, shrinking Southern child whom he had loved and petted and smothered with roses, this tender, clinging girl who trusted him so implicitly, was no longer his sweetheart, but his helpmate. She had all at once become a woman,—strong, courageous, clear-minded, helpful, ready to lead him if need be.
A new feeling rose in his heart and spread itself through every fibre of his being,—a feeling without which love is a plaything. It was reverence.
When Sanford reached his apartments Sam was waiting for him, as usual. The candles were lighted instead of the lamp. The windows of the balcony were wide open.
“You need not wait, Sam; I’ll close the blinds,” he said, as he stepped out and sank into a chair.
Long after Sam had gone he sat there without moving, his head bent, his forehead resting on his hand. He was trying to pick up the threads of his life again, to find the old pattern which had once guided him in his course, and to clear it from the tangle of lines that had suddenly twisted and confused him.
For a long time he saw nothing but Kate’s eyes as they had met his own, with the possibilities which he had read in their depths. He tried to drive the picture from him; then baffled by its persistence he resolutely faced it; held it as it were in his hands, and, looking long and unflinchingly at it, summoned all his courage.
He had read Kate’s heart in her face. He knew that he had revealed his own. But he meant that the future should be unaffected by the revelations made. The world must never share her confidence nor his, as it would surely do at their first false step. It should not have the right to turn and look, and to wonder at the woman whom he was proud to love. That open fearlessness which all who knew her gloried in should still be hers. He realized the value of it to her, and what its loss would entail should a spoken word of his rob her of it, or any momentary weakness of theirs deprive her of the strength and comfort which his open companionship could give.
No! God willing, he would stand firm, and so should she.
An hour later he was still there, his unlighted cigar between his lips, his head on his hands.
The mile or more of shore skirting the curve of Keyport harbor from Keyport Village to Captain Joe’s cottage was lighted by only four street lamps. Three of these were hung on widely scattered telegraph-poles; the fourth was nailed fast to one end of old Captain Potts’s fish-house.
When the nights were moonless, these faithful sentinels, with eyes alert, scanned the winding road, or so much of it as their lances could protect, watching over deep culverts, and in one place guarded a treacherous bridge without a rail.
When the nights were cloudy and the lantern-panes were dimmed by the driving sleet, these beacons confined their efforts to pointing out for the stumbling wayfarer the deep puddles or the higher rows of soggy seaweed washed up by the last high tide into the highway itself. Only on thick nights, when the fog-drift stole in from the still sea, and even Keyport Light burned dim, did their scouting rays retreat discomfited, illumining nothing but the poles on which the lanterns hung.
Yet in spite of this vigilance there were still long stretches of road between, which even on clear nights were dark as graveyards and as lonesome. Except for the ruddy gleam slanted across the path from some cabin window, or the glare of a belated villager’s swinging lantern flecking the pale, staring fences with seesawing lights and shadows, not a light was visible.
Betty knew every foot of this road. She had trundled her hoop on it, her hair flying in the wind, when she first came to Keyport to school. She had trodden it many a time with Caleb; had idled along its curves with Lacey before the day when her life came to an end, and had plodded over it many a weary hour since, as she went to her work in the village or returned to Captain Joe’s. Every stone and tree and turn were familiar to her, and she could have found her way in the pitch-dark to the captain’s or to Caleb’s, just as she had done again and again in the days before the street lights were set, or when Caleb would be standing on the porch, if she were late, shading his eyes and peering down the road, the kitchen lamp in his hand. “I was gittin’ worrited, little woman; what kep’ ye?” he would say. She had never been afraid in those days, no matter what the hour. Everybody knew her. “Oh, that’s you, Mis’ West, is it? I kind o’ mistrusted it was,” would come from some shadowy figure across the road.
All this was changed for her now. There were places along the highway that made her draw her shawl closer, often half hiding her face. She would shudder as she turned the corner by the church, the one where the captain and Aunty Bell had taken her the first Sunday after her coming back. The big, gloomy oil warehouse where she had nursed Lacey seemed to her haunted and uncanny, and at night more gloomy than ever without a ray of light in any one of its broken, staring windows. Even the fishing-smacks, anchored out of harm’s way for the night, looked gruesome and mysterious, with single lights aloft, and black hulls and masts reflected in the water. It was never until she reached the willows that her agitation disappeared. These grew just opposite Captain Potts’s fish-house. There were three of them, and their branches interlocked and spread across the road, the spaces between the trunks being black at night, despite the one street lamp nailed to the fish-house across the way. When Betty gained these trees her breath always came freer. She could then see along the whole road, away past Captain Joe’s, and up the hill. She could see, too, Caleb’s cabin from this spot, and the lamp burning in the kitchen window. She knew who was sitting beside it. From these willows, also, she could run for Captain Joe’s swinging gate with its big ball and chain, getting safely inside before Caleb could pass and see her, if by any chance he should be on the road and coming to the village. Once she had met him this side of their dark shadows. It was on a Saturday, and he was walking into the village, his basket on his arm. He was going for his Sunday supplies, no doubt. The Ledge gang must have come in sooner than usual, for it was early twilight. She had seen him coming a long way off, and had looked about for some means of escape. There was no mistaking his figure. She would know him as far as she could see him,—that strong, broad figure, with the awkward, stiff walk peculiar to so many seafaring men, particularly lightship-keepers like Caleb, who have walked but little. She knew, too, the outline of the big, fluffy beard that the wind caught and blew over his ruddy face. No one could be like her Caleb but himself.
These chance meetings she dreaded with a fear she could not overcome. On this last occasion, finding no concealing shelter, she had kept on, her eyes on the ground. When Caleb had passed, his blue eyes staring straight ahead, his face drawn and white, the lips pressed close, she turned and looked after him, and he turned, too, and looked after her,—these two, man and wife, within reach of each other’s arms and lips, yet with only the longing hunger of a dead happiness in their eyes. She could have run toward him, and knelt down in the road, and begged him to forgive her and take her home again, had not Captain Joe’s words restrained her: “Caleb says he ain’t got nothin’ agin ye, child, but he won’t take ye back s’ long ’s he lives.”
Because, then, of the dread of these chance meetings, and because of the shy looks of many of the villagers, who, despite Captain Joe’s daily fight, still passed her with but a slight nod of recognition, she was less unhappy when she walked the road at night than in the daylight. The chance of being recognized was less. Caleb might pass her in the dark and not see her, and then, too, there were fewer people passing after dark.
On the Saturday night succeeding that on which they had met and looked at each other, she determined to wait until it was quite dark. He would have come in then, and she could slip out from the shop where she worked and gain the shore road before he had finished making his purchases in the village.
Her heart had been very heavy all day. The night before she had left her own bed and tapped at Aunty Bell’s door, and had crept under the coverlid beside the little woman, the captain being at the Ledge, and had had one of her hearty cries, sobbing on the elder woman’s neck, her arms about her, her cheek to hers. She had gone over with her for the hundredth time all the misery of her position, wondering what would become of her; and how hard it was for Caleb to do all his work alone,—washing his clothes and cooking his meals just as he had done on board the lightship; pouring out her heart until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. All of her thoughts were centred in him and his troubles. She longed to go back to Caleb to take care of him. It was no longer to be taken care of, but to care for him.
As she hurried through the streets, after leaving the shop, and gained the corner leading to the shore road, she glanced up and down, fearing to see the sturdy figure with the basket. But there was no one in sight whom she knew. At this discovery she slackened her steps and looked around more quietly. When she reached the bend in the road, a flash of light from an open door in a cabin near by gave her a momentary glimpse of a housewife bending over a stove and a man putting a dinner-pail on the kitchen table. Then all was dark again. It was but a momentary glimpse of a happiness the possibility of which in her own life she had wrecked, but it sent the blood tingling to her face. She stopped, steadying herself by the stone wall, then she walked on.
When she passed into the black shadows of the overhanging willows, a man stepped from behind a tree-trunk.
“Aren’t you rather late this evening?” he asked.
Betty stood still, the light of the street lamp full on her face. The abruptness of the sound startled her.
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid; I’m not going to hurt you.”
The girl peered into the gloom. She thought the voice was familiar, though she was not sure. She could distinguish only a shadowy face.
“What makes you so skittish, anyhow?” the man asked again,—in a lower tone this time. “You didn’t use to be so. I thought maybe you might like to drive over to Medford and see the show to-night.”
Betty made no answer, but she took a step nearer to him, trying to identify him. She was not afraid; only curious. Then all at once it occurred to her that it could be for no good purpose he had stopped her. None of the men had spoken to her in the street, even in the daytime, since her return home.
“Please let me pass,” she said quietly and firmly.
“Oh, you needn’t be in a hurry. We’ve got all night. Come along, now, won’t you? You used to like me once, before you shook the old man.”
Betty knew him now!
The terror of her position overcame her; a deathly faintness seized her.
She saw it all; she knew why this man dared. She realized the loneliness and desolation of her position, poor child that she was. Every cabin near her filled with warmth and cheer and comfort, and she friendless and alone! Not a woman near but had the strong arm of husband or brother to help and defend her. The very boats in the harbor, with their beacon-lights aloft, protected and safe. Only she in danger; only she unguarded, waylaid, open to insult, even by a man like this.
She stood shivering, looking into his cowardly face. Then rousing herself to her peril, she sprang toward the road. In an instant the man had seized her wrist. She felt his hot breath on her face.
“Oh, come now, none of that! Say, why ain’t I as good as Bill Lacey? Give me a kiss.”
“Let me go!Let me go!How dare you!” she cried, struggling in his grasp. When she found his strength gaining on her, she screamed.
Hardly had she made her outcry, when from behind the fish-house a man with a flowing beard darted into the shadows, flung himself on Betty’s assailant, and dragged him out under the glare of the street lamp. The girl fled up the road without looking behind.
“That’s what ye’re up to, is it, Mr. Carleton?” said the man, holding the other with the grip of a steel vise. “I ’spected as much when I see ye passin’ my place. Damn ye! If it warn’t that it would be worse for her, I’d kill ye!”
Every muscle in the speaker’s body was tense with anger. Carleton’s head was bent back, his face livid from the pressure of his assailant’s fingers twisted about his throat.
The man slowly relaxed his hold. “Ain’t she got trouble ’nough without havin’ a skunk like you a-runnin’ foul o’ her?”
Carleton made a quick gesture as if to spring aside and run. The diver saw the movement and stepped in front of him.
“Ain’t ye ashamed o’ yerself? Ain’t it mean o’ ye to make up to a gal like Betty?” His voice was low and measured.
“What’s it your business, anyhow?” Carleton gasped between his breaths, shaking himself like a tousled dog. “What are you putting on frills about her for, anyhow? She’s nothing to you, if she is your wife. I guess I know what I’m doing.”
Caleb’s fingers grew hard and rigid as claws.
“So do I know what ye’re a-doin’. Ye’d drag that child down an’ stomp on her, if ye could. Ye’d make athingof her,”—the words came with a hiss,—“you—you—callin’ yerself a man!”
“Why don’t you take care of her, then?” snarled Carleton, with an assumed air of composure, as he adjusted his collar and cuffs.
“That’s what I’m here for; that’s why I follered ye; there ain’t a night since it begun to git dark I ain’t watched her home. She’s not yourn; she’s mine. Look at me,”—Caleb stepped closer and raised his clinched fist. “If ever ye speak to her agin, so help me God, Iwillkill ye!”
With one swing of his arm he threw the superintendent out of his way, and strode up the street.
Carleton staggered from the blow, and would have fallen but for the wall of the fish-house. For a moment he stood in the road looking after Caleb’s retreating figure. Then, with a forced bravado in his voice, he called out in the darkness, “If you think so damn much of her, why don’t you take her home?” and slunk away toward the village.
The old man did not turn. If he heard, he made no sign. He walked on, with his head down, his eyes on the road. As he passed Captain Joe’s he loitered at the gate until he saw the light flash up in Betty’s bedroom; then he kept on to his own cabin.
The fire was nearly out when Caleb entered his kitchen door and drew a chair to the stove. Carleton’s taunting words, “Why don’t you take her home?” rang in his ears. Their sting hurt him. Everything else seemed to fall away from his mind. He knew why he did not take her home, he said to himself; every one else knew why,—every one up and down Keyport knew what Betty had done to ruin him. If she was friendless, tramping the road, within sight of her own house, whose fault was it? Not his. He had never done anything but love her and take care of her.
He reached for a pair of tongs, stirred the coals, and threw on a single piece of driftwood. The fire blazed up brightly at once, its light flickering on the diver’s ruddy face, and as quickly died out.
“Why don’t I take care of ’er, eh? Why didn’t she take care of herself?” he cried aloud, gazing into the smouldering embers. “She sees what it is now trampin’ the road nights, runnin’ up agin such curs as him. He’s a nice un, he is. I wish I’d choked the life out’er him; such fellers ain’t no right to live,” looking about him as if he expected to find Carleton behind the door, and as quickly recovering himself. “I wonder if he hurt ’er,”—his voice had softened. “She screamed turrible. I ought, maybe, to ’a’ ketched up to her. Poor little gal, she ain’t used to this.” He was silent awhile, his head bent, his shoulders updrawn, his big frame stretched out in the chair.
“She ain’t nothin’ but a child, anyhow,” he broke out again,—“Cap’n Joe says so. He says I don’t think o’ this; maybe he’s right. He says I’m bigger an’ twice as old’s she be, an’ ought’er know more; that it ain’t me she’s hurted,—it’s herself; that I married her to take care of ’er; and that the fust time she got in a hole I go back on ’er, ’cause she’s dragged me in arter ’er. Well, ain’t I a-takin’ care of ’er? Ain’t I split squar’ in two every cent I’ve earned since she run away with that”—
Caleb paused abruptly. Even to himself he never mentioned Lacey’s name. Bending forward he poked the fire vigorously, raking the coals around the single stick of driftwood. “It’s all very well for th’ cap’n to talk; he ain’t gone through what I have.”
Pushing back his chair he paced the small room, talking to himself as he walked, pausing to address his sentences to the several articles of furniture,—the chairs, the big table, the kitchen sink, whatever came in his way. It was an old trick of his when alone. “I ain’t a-goin’ to have ’er come home so late no more,” he continued. His voice had sunk to a gentle whisper. “I’m goin’ to tell them folks she works for that they’ve got to let ’er out afore dark, or she shan’t stay.” He was looking now at an old rocker as if it were the shopkeeper himself. “She’ll be so scared arter this she won’t have a minute’s peace. She needn’t worrit herself, though, ’bout that skunk. She’s shut o’him. But there’ll be more of ’em. They all think that now I’ve throwed ’er off they kin do as they’ve a mind to.” He stopped again and gazed down at the floor, seemingly absorbed in a hole in one of the planks. “Cap’n Joe sez I ain’t got no business to throw ’er off. He wouldn’t treat a dog so,—that’s what ye said, cap’n; I ain’t never goin’ to forgit it.Iain’t throwedheroff. She throwedmeoff,—lef’ me here without a word; an’ ye know it, cap’n. Ye want me to take ’er back, do ye?” He spoke with as much earnestness as though the captain stood before him. “S’pose I do, an’ she finds out arter all that her comin’ home was ’cause she was skeared of it all, and that she still loved”—
He stopped, reseated himself, and picking up another stick threw it on the fire, snuggling the two together. The sticks, cheered by each other’s warmth, burst into a crackling flame.
“Poor little Betty!” he began again aloud. “I’m sorry for ye. Everybody’s agin ye, child, ’cept Cap’n Joe’s folks. I know it hurts ye turrible to have folks look away from ye. Ye always loved to have folks love ye. I ain’t got nothin’ agin ye, child, indeed I ain’t. It was my fault, not yourn. I told Cap’n Joe so; ask him,—he’ll tell ye.” He turned toward the empty chair beside him, as if he saw her sad face there. “I know it’s hard, child,” shaking his head. “Ain’t nobody feels it more ’n me,—ain’t nobody feels it more ’n me. I guess I must take care o’ ye; I guess there ain’t nobody else but me kin do it.”
The logs blazed cheerily; the whole room was alight. “I wish ye loved me like ye did onct, little woman,—I wouldn’t want no better happiness; jest me an’ you, like it useter was. I wonder if ye do? No, I know ye don’t.” The last words came with a positive tone.
For a long time he remained still, gazing at the blazing logs locked together, the flames dancing about them. Then he got up and roamed mechanically around the room, his thoughts away with Betty and her helpless condition, and her rightful dependence on him. In the same dreary way he opened the cupboard, took out a piece of cold meat and some slices of stale bread, laying them on the table, poured some tea into a cup and put it on the stove; it was easier making the tea that way than in a pot. He drew the table toward the fire, so that his supper would be within reach, stirring the brewing tea meanwhile with a fork he had in his hand, and began his frugal meal. Since Betty left he had never set the table. It seemed less lonely to eat this way.
Just as he had finished there came a knock at the front door. Caleb started, and put down his cup. Who could come at this hour? Craning his head toward the small open hall, he saw through the glass in the door the outlines of a woman’s figure approaching him through the hall. His face flushed, and his heart seemed to jump in his throat.
“It’s me, Caleb,” said the woman. “It’s Aunty Bell. The door was open, so I didn’t wait. Cap’n sent me up all in a hurry. He’s jes’ come in from the Ledge, and hollered to me from the tug to send up and get ye. The pump’s broke on the big h’ister. A new one’s got to be cast to-night and bored out to-morrer, if itisSunday. Cap’n says everything’s stopped at the Ledge, and they can’t do another stroke till this pump’s fixed. Weren’t nobody home but Betty, and so I come myself. Come right along; he wants ye at the machine shop jes’ ’s quick as ye kin git there.”
Caleb kept his seat and made no reply. Something about the shock of discovering who the woman was had stunned him. He did not try to explain it to himself; he was conscious only of a vague yet stinging sense of disappointment. Automatically, like a trained soldier obeying a command, he bent forward in his chair, drew his thick shoes from under the stove, slipped his feet into them, and silently followed Aunty Bell out of the house and down the road. When they reached Captain Joe’s gate he looked up at Betty’s window. There was no light.
“Has Betty gone to bed?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, more ’n an hour ago. She come home late, all tuckered out. I see ’er jes’ before I come out. She said she warn’t sick, but she wouldn’t eat nothin’.”
Caleb paused, looked at her as if he were about to speak again, hesitated, then, without a word, walked away.
“Stubborn as a mule,” said Aunty Bell, looking after him. “I ain’t got no patience with such men.”
When Sanford arrived at Keyport, a raw, southeast gale swept through the deserted streets. About the wharves of the village itself idle stevedores lounged under dripping roofs, watching the cloud-rack and speculating on the chances of going to work. Out in the harbor the fishing-boats rocked uneasily, their long, red pennants flattened against the sky. Now and then a frightened sloop came hurrying in with close-reefed jib, sousing her bow under at every plunge.
Away off in the open a dull gray mist, churned up by the tumbling waves, dimmed the horizon, blurring here and there a belated coaster laboring heavily under bare poles, while from Crotch Island way came the roar of the pounding surf dashed headlong on the beach. The long-expected equinoctial storm was at its height.
So fierce and so searching were the wind and rain that Sanford was thoroughly drenched when he reached Captain Joe’s cottage.
“For the land’s sake, Mr. Sanford, come right in! Why, ye’re jest’s soakin’ as though ye’d fell off the dock. Cap’n said ye was a-comin’, but I hoped ye wouldn’t. I ain’t never see it blow so terrible, I don’t know when. Gimme that overcoat,” slipping it from his shoulders and arms. “Be yer feet wet?”
“Pretty wet, Mrs. Bell. I’ll go up to my room and get some dry socks”—
“Ye ain’t a-goin’ to move one step. Set right down an’ get them shoes off. I’ll go for the socks myself. I overhauled ’em last week with the cap’n’s, and sot a new toe in one o’ them. I won’t be a minute!” she cried, hurrying out of the room, and returning with heavy woolen socks and a white worsted sweater.
“Guess ye’ll want these, too, sir,” she said, picking up a pair of slippers.
“Where is Captain Joe?” asked Sanford, as he pulled off his wet shoes and stockings and moved closer to the fire. It was an every-day scene in Aunty Bell’s kitchen, where one half of her visitors were wet half the time, and the other half wet all the time.
“I don’t jes’ know. He ain’t been home sence Saturday night but jes’ long ’nough to change his clothes an’ git a bite to eat. Come in from the Ledge Saturday night on the tug two hours after the Screamer brought in the men, an’ hollered to me to go git Caleb an’ come down to the machine shop. You heared they broke the pump on the h’istin’-engine, didn’t ye? They both been a-workin’ on it pretty much ever sence.”
“Not the big hoister?” Sanford exclaimed, with a start, turning pale.
“Well, that’s what the cap’n said, sir. He an’ Caleb worked all Saturday night an’ Sunday, an’ got a new castin’ made, an’ bored it out yesterday. I told him he wouldn’t have no luck, workin’ on Sunday, but he didn’t pay no more ’tention to me than th’ wind a-blowin’. It was to be done this mornin’. He was up at five, an’ I ain’t seen him sence. Said he was goin’ to git to the Ledge in Cap’n Potts’ cat-boat, if it mod’rated.”
“He won’t go,” said Sanford, with a sigh of relief now that he knew the break had been repaired without delay. “No cat-boat can live outside to-day.”
“Well, all I know is, I heared him tell Lonny Bowles to ask Cap’n Potts for it ’fore they went out,” she replied, as she hung Sanford’s socks on a string especially reserved for such emergencies. “Said they had two big cut stone to set, an’ they couldn’t get a pound o’ steam on the Ledge till he brought the pump back.”
Sanford instinctively looked out of the window. The rain beat against the panes. The boom of the surf sounded like distant cannon.
“Ye can’t do nothin’ with him when he gits one o’ his spells on, noways,” continued Aunty Bell, as she raked out the coals. “Jes’ wait till I grind some fresh coffee,—won’t take a minute. Then I’ll git breakfast for ye.”
Sanford stepped into the sitting-room, closed the door, took off his coat and waistcoat, loosened his collar, pulled on the sweater, and came back into the kitchen, looking like a substitute in a game of football. He always kept a stock of such dry luxuries in his little room upstairs, Aunty Bell looking after them as she did after the captain’s, and these rapid changes of dress were not unusual.
“How does Betty get on?” asked Sanford, drawing up a chair to the table. The bustling little woman was bringing relays of bread, butter, and other comforts, flitting between the pantry and the stove.
“Pretty peaked, sir; ye wouldn’t know her, poor little girl; it’d break yer heart to see her,” she answered, as she placed a freshly baked pie on the table. “She’s upstairs now. Cap’n wouldn’t let her git up an’ go to work this mornin’, it blowed so. That’s her now a-comin’ downstairs.”
Sanford rose and held out his hand. He had not seen Betty since the memorable night when she had stood in his hallway, and he had taken her to Mrs. Leroy’s. He had been but seldom at the captain’s of late, going straight to the Ledge from the train, and had always missed her.
Betty started back, and her color came and went when she saw who it was. She didn’t know anybody was downstairs, she said half apologetically, addressing her words to Aunty Bell, her eyes averted from Sanford’s face.
“Why, Betty, I’m glad to see you!” exclaimed Sanford in a cheery tone, his mind going back to Mrs. Leroy’s admonition.
Betty raised her eyes with a timid, furtive glance, her face flushed scarlet, but, reading Sanford’s entire sincerity in his face, she laid her hand in his, saying it was a bad day, and that she hoped he was not wet. Then she turned to help Mrs. Bell with the table.
Sanford watched her slight figure and care-worn face as she moved about the room—hardly a trace in them of the Betty of old. When Aunty Bell had gone down into the cellar, he called Betty to him and said in a low voice, “I have a message for you.”
She turned quickly, as if anticipating some unwelcome revelation.
“Mrs. Leroy told me to give you her love.”
Betty’s eyes filled. “Is that what she said, Mr. Sanford?”
“Every word, Betty, and she means it all.”
The girl stood fingering the handles of the knives she had just laid upon the cloth. After a pause, Sanford’s eyes still upon her face, she answered slowly, with a pathos that went straight home to his heart:—
“Tell her, please, sir, that I thank her so much, and that I never forget her. I am trying so hard—so hard—I promised her I would. You don’t know, Mr. Sanford,—nobody won’t never know how good she was to me. If I’d been her sister she couldn’t ’a’ done no more.”
It was but a slight glimpse of the girl’s real nature, but it settled for Sanford all the misgivings he had had. It sent a quiver through him, too, as his mind reverted to Kate’s own account of the interview. He was about to tell her of Mrs. Leroy’s expected arrival at Medford, and urge her to go over some Sunday, when Aunty Bell bustled in with a covered dish.
“Come, child,” she said, “sit right down alongside o’ Mr. Sanford an’ git your breakfas’. You ain’t eat a morsel yet.”
There were no seats of honor and no second table in this house, except for those who came late.
Here a sharp, quick knock sounded on the outer door, and in stalked Captain Bob Brandt, six feet or more of wet oilskins, the rain dripping from his sou’wester, his rosy, good-natured face peering out from under the puckered brim.
“Cap’n Joe sent me down to the station for ye, sir, in case ye come, but I missed ye, somehow. Mr. Carleton was on the platform, an’ said he see ye git off. Guess ye must ’a’ come cross lots.”
“Did Mr. Carleton mention anything about receiving a telegram from me, saying I wanted to see him?” inquired Sanford, as he shook the skipper’s hand.
“Yes, sir; said he knew yer was comin’, but that he was goin’ over to Medford till the storm was over.”
Sanford’s brow knit. Carleton had evidently avoided him.
“Did he leave any message or letter with Captain Joe?” Sanford asked, after a pause. He still hoped that the coveted certificate had finally been signed.
“Guess not, sir. Don’t think he see ’im. I suppose ye know Cap’n Joe’s gone to the Ledge with the new pump?”
“Not in this storm?” cried Sanford, a look of alarm overspreading his face.
“Yes, sir, half an hour ago, in Cap’n Potts’ Dolly. I watched ’em till they run under the P’int, then I come for you; guess that’s what got me late. She was under double reefs then, an’ a-smashin’ things for all she was worth. I tell ye, ’t ain’t no good place out there for nobody, not even Cap’n Joe.” As he spoke he took off his hat and thrashed the water from it against the jamb of the door. “No, thank ye, ma’am,” with a wave of his hand in answer to Mrs. Bell’s gesture to sit down opposite Betty. “I had breakfast ’board the Screamer.”
“Who’s with him?” exclaimed Sanford, now really uneasy. Captain Joe’s personal safety was worth more to him than the completion of a dozen lighthouses.
“Caleb and Lonny Bowles. They’d go anywheres cap’n told ’em. He was holdin’ tiller when I see him last; Caleb layin’ back on the sheet and Lonny bailin’. Cap’n said he wouldn’t ’a’ risked it, only we was behind an’ he didn’t want ye worried. I’m kind’er sorry they started; it ain’t no picnic out there, I tell ye.”
Betty gave an anxious look at Aunty Bell.
“Is it a very bad storm, Cap’n Brandt?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“Wust I ever see, Mis’ West, since I worked round here,” nodding kindly to Betty as he spoke, his face lighting up. He had always believed in her because the captain had taken her home. “Everything comin’ in under double reefs,—them thatisa-comin’ in. They say two o’ them Lackawanna coal-barges went adrift at daylight an’ come ashore at Crotch Island. Had two men drownded, I hear.”
“Who told you that?” asked Sanford. The news only increased his anxiety.
“The cap’n of the tow line, sir. He’s just telegraphed to New Haven for a big wreckin’ tug.”
Sanford told Captain Brandt to wait, ran upstairs two steps at a time, and reappeared in long rubber boots and mackintosh.
“I’ll walk up toward the lighthouse and find out how they are getting on, Mrs. Bell,” he said. “We can see them from the lantern deck. Come, Captain Brandt, I want you with me.” A skilled seaman like the skipper might be needed before the day was over.
Betty and Aunty Bell looked after them until they had swung back the garden gate with its clanking ball and chain, and had turned to breast the gale in their walk of a mile or more up the shore road.
“Oh, aunty,” said Betty, with a tremor in her voice, all the blood gone from her face, “do you think anything will happen?”
“Not ’s long ’s Cap’n Joe’s aboard, child. He ain’t a-takin’ no risks he don’t know all about. Ye needn’t worry a mite. Set down an’ finish yer breakfas’. I believe Mr. Sanford ain’t done more ’n swallow his coffee,” she added, with a pitying look, as she inspected his plate.
The fact that her husband was exposed in an open boat to the fury of a southeaster made no more impression upon her mind than if he had been reported asleep upstairs. She knew there was no storm the captain could not face.
Tony Marvin, the keeper of Keyport Light, was in his little room next the fog-horn when Sanford and the skipper, wet and glistening as two seals, knocked at the outer door of his quarters.
“Well, I want to know!” broke out Tony in his bluff, hearty way, as he opened the door. “Come in,—come in! Nice weather for ducks, ain’t it? Sunthin’ ’s up, or you fellers wouldn’t be out to-day,” leading the way to his room. “Anybody drownded?” he asked facetiously, stopping for a moment on the threshold.
“Not yet, Tony,” said Sanford in a serious tone. He had known the keeper for years,—had, in fact, helped him get his appointment at the Light. “But I’m worried about Captain Joe and Caleb.” He opened his coat, and walked across the room to a bench set against the whitewashed wall, little streams of water following him as he moved. “Did you see them go by? They’re in Captain Potts’s Dolly Varden.”
“Gosh hang, no! Ye ain’t never tellin’ me, be ye, that the cap’n ’s gone to the Ledge in all this smother? And that fool Caleb with him, too?”
“Yes, and Lonny Bowles,” interrupted the skipper. As he spoke he pulled off one of his water-logged boots and poured the contents into a fire-bucket standing against the wall.
“How long since they started?” asked the keeper anxiously, taking down his spyglass from a rack above the buckets.
“Half an hour ago.”
“Then they’re this side of Crotch Island yit, if they’re anywheres. Let’s go up to the lantern. Mebbe we can see ’em,” he said, unlatching the door of the tower. “Better leave them boots behind, Mr. Sanford, and shed yer coat. A feller’s knees git purty tired climbin’ these steps, when he ain’t used to’t; there’s a hundred and ten of ’em. Here, try these slippin’s of mine,” and he kicked a pair of slippers from under a chair. “Guess they’ll fit ye. Seems to me Caleb’s been doin’ his best to git drownded since that high-flyer of a gal left him. He come by here daylight, one mornin’ awhile ago, in a sharpie that you wouldn’t cross a creek in, and it blowin’ half a gale. I ain’t surprised o’ nothin’ in Caleb, but Cap’n Joe ought’er have more sense. What’s he goin’ for, anyhow, to-day?” he grumbled, as Sanford drew on the slippers and placed his foot on the first iron step of the spiral staircase.
“He’s taken the new pump with him,” said Sanford, as he followed the keeper up the winding steps, the skipper close behind. “They broke the old pump on Saturday, and everything is stopped on the Ledge. Captain knows we’re behind, and he doesn’t want to lose an hour. But it was a foolish venture. He had no business to risk his life in a blow like this, Tony.” There was a serious tone in Sanford’s voice which quickened the keeper’s step.
“What good is the pump to him, if he does get it there? Men can’t work to-day,” Tony answered. He was now a dozen steps ahead, his voice sounding hollow in the reverberations of the round tower.
“Oh, that ain’t a-goin’ to stop us!” shouted the skipper from below, resting a moment to get his breath as he spoke. “We’ve got the masonry clean out o’ water; we’re all right if Cap’n Joe can git steam on the hoister.”
The keeper, whose legs had become as supple as a squirrel’s in the five years he had climbed up and down these stairs, reached the lantern deck some minutes ahead of the others. He was wiping the sweat from the lantern glass with a clean white cloth, and drawing back the day curtains so that they might see better, when Sanford’s head appeared above the lens deck.
Once upon the iron floor of the deck, the roar of the wind and the dash of the rain, which had been deadened by the thick walls of the structure surrounding the staircase below, burst upon them seemingly with increased fury. A tremulous, swaying motion was plainly felt. A novice would have momentarily expected the structure to measure its length on the rocks below. Above the roar of the storm could be heard, at intervals, the thunder of the surf breaking on Crotch Island beach.
“Gosh A’mighty!” exclaimed the keeper, adjusting the glass, which he had carried up in his hand. “It’s a-humpin’ things, and no mistake. See them rollers break on Crotch Island,” and he swept his glass around. “I see ’em. There they are,—three o’ them. There’s Cap’n Joe,—ain’t no mistakin’ him. He’s got his cap on, same’s he allers wears. And there’s Caleb; his beard’s a-flyin’ straight out. Who’s that in the red flannen shirt?”
“Lonny Bowles,” said the skipper.
“Yes, that’s Bowles. He’s a-bailin’ for all he’s worth. Cap’n Joe’s got the tiller and Caleb’s a-hangin’ on the sheet. Here, Mr. Sanford,” and he held out the glass, “ye kin see ’em plain ’s day.”
Sanford waved the glass away. The keeper’s eyes, he said, were better accustomed to scanning a scene like this. He himself could see the Dolly, a mile or more this side of Crotch Island Point, and nearly two miles away from where the three watchers stood. She was hugging the inside shore-line, her sail close-reefed. He could even make out the three figures, which were but so many black dots beaded along her gunwale. All about the staggering boat seethed the gray sea, mottled in wavy lines of foam. Over this circled white gulls, shrieking as they flew.
“He’s gittin’ ready to go about,” continued the keeper, his eye still to the glass. “I see Caleb shiftin’ his seat. They know they can’t make the P’int on that leg. Jiminy-whiz, but it’s soapy out there! See ’er take that roller! Gosh!”
The boat careened, the dots crowded together, and the Dolly bore away from the shore. It was evidently Captain Joe’s intention to give Crotch Island Point a wide berth and then lay a straight course for the Ledge, now barely visible through the haze, the derricks and masonry alone showing clear above the fringe of breaking surf tossed white against the dull gray sky.
All eyes were now fixed on the Dolly. Three times she laid a course toward the Ledge, and three times she was forced back behind the island.
“They’ve got to give it up,” said the keeper, laying down his glass. “That tide cuts round that ’ere P’int like a mill-tail, to say nothin’ o’ them smashers that’s rollin’ in. How she keeps afloat out there is what beats me.”
“She wouldn’t if Cap’n Joe wasn’t at the tiller,” said the skipper, with a laugh. “Ye can’t drown him no more ’n a water-rat.” He had an abiding faith in Captain Joe almost as great as that of Aunty Bell.
Sanford’s face brightened. An overwhelming anxiety for the safety of the endangered men had strangely, almost unaccountably unnerved him. It was some comfort to feel Captain Brandt’s confidence in Captain Joe’s ability to meet the situation; for that little cockle-shell battling before him as if for its very life—one moment on top of a mountain of water, and the next buried out of sight—held between its frail sides not only two of the best men whom he knew, but really two of the master spirits of their class. One of them, Captain Joe, Sanford admired more than any other man, loving him, too, as he had loved but few.
With a smile to the skipper, he looked off again toward the sea. He saw the struggling boat make a fourth attempt to clear the Point, and in the movement lurch wildly; he saw, too, that her long boom was swaying from side to side. Through the driving spray he made out that two of the dots were trying to steady it. The third dot was standing in the stern.
Here some new movement caught his eye. He strained his neck forward; then taking the glass from the skipper watched the little craft intently.
“There’s something the matter,” he said nervously, after a moment’s pause. “That’s Captain Joe waving to one of those two smacks out there scudding in under close reefs. Look yourself; am I right, Tony?” and he passed the glass to the keeper again.
“Looks like it, sir,” replied Tony in a low tone, the end of the glass fixed on the tossing boat. “The smack sees ’em now, sir. She’s goin’ about.”
The fishing-smack careened, fluttered in the wind like a baffled pigeon, and bore across to the plunging boat.
“The spray’s a-flyin’ so ye can’t see clear, sir,” said the keeper, his eye still at the glass. “She ain’t actin’ right, somehow; that boom seems to bother ’em. Cap’n Joe’s runnin’ for’ard. Gosh! that one went clean over ’er. Look out!Look out!” in quick crescendo, as if the endangered crew could have heard him. “See ’er take ’em! There’s another went clean across. My God, Mr. Sanford! she’s over,—capsized!”
Sanford made a rush for the staircase, a rash, unreasonable impulse to help taking possession of him. The keeper caught him firmly by the arm.
“Come back, sir! You’re only wastin’ yer breath. That smack’ll get ’em.”
Captain Brandt picked up the glass that the keeper had dropped. His hands shook so he could hardly adjust the lens.
“The boom’s broke,” he said in a trembling voice; “that’s what ails ’em. She’s bottom side up. Lord, if she ain’t a-wallowin’! I never ’spected to see Cap’n Joe in a hole like that. They’re all three in th’ water; ain’t a man livin’ can swim ashore in that sea! Why don’t that blamed smack go about? They’ll sink ’fore she can get to ’em. Where’s the cap’n? He ain’t come up yet. There’s Lonny and Caleb, but I don’t see Cap’n Joe nowhere.”
Sanford leaned against the brass rail of the great lens, his eyes on the fishing-smack swooping down to the rescue. The helplessness of his position, his absolute inability to help the drowning men, overwhelmed him: Captain Joe and Caleb perishing before his eyes, and he powerless to lift a hand.
“Do you see the captain anywhere?” he asked, with an effort at self-control. The words seemed to clog his throat.
“Not yet, sir, but there’s Lonny, and there’s Caleb. You look, Mr. Marvin,” he said, turning to the keeper. He could not trust himself any longer. For the first time his faith in Captain Joe had failed him.
Marvin held the glass to his eye and covered the boat. He hardly dared breathe.
“Can’t see but two, sir.” His voice was broken and husky. “Can’t make out the cap’n nowheres. Something must ’a’ struck him an’ stunned him. My—my—ain’t it a shame for him to cut up a caper like this! I allers told Cap’n Joe he’d get hurted in some foolish kick-up. Why in hell don’t them other fellers do something? If they don’t look out, the Dolly’ll drift so far they’ll lose him,—standin’ there like two dummies an’ lettin’ a man drown! Lord! Lord! ain’t it too bad!” The keeper’s eyes filled. Everything was dim before him.
The skipper sank on the oil-chest and bowed his head. Sanford’s hands were over his face. If the end had come, he did not want to see it.
The small, close lantern became as silent as a death-chamber. The keeper, his back against the lens rail, folded his arms across his chest and stared out to sea. His face bore the look of one watching a dying man. Sanford did not move. His thoughts were on Aunty Bell. What should he say to her? Was there not something he could have done? Should he not, after all, have hailed the first tug in the harbor and gone in search of them before it was too late?
The seconds dragged. The silence in its intensity became unbearable. With a deep indrawn sigh, Captain Brandt turned toward Sanford and touched him. “Come away,” he said, with the tenderness of one strong man who suffers and is stirred with greater sorrow by another’s grief. “This ain’t no place for you, Mr. Sanford. Come away.”
Sanford raised his eyes and was about to speak, when the keeper threw up his arms with a joyous shout and seized the glass. “There he is! I see his cap! That’s Cap’n Joe! He’s holdin’ up his hands. Caleb’s crawlin’ along the bottom; he’s reachin’ down an’ haulin’ Cap’n Joe up. Now he’s on ’er keel.”
Sanford and Captain Brandt sprang to their feet, crowding close to the lantern glass, their eyes fastened on the Dolly. Sanford’s hands were trembling. Hot, quick tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped from his chin. The joyful news had unnerved him more than the horror of the previous moments. There was no doubt of its truth; he could see, even with the naked eye, the captain lying flat on the boat’s keel. He thought he could follow every line of his body,—never so precious as now.
“He’s all right,” he said in a dazed way—“all right—all right,” repeating it mechanically over and over to himself, as a child would do. Then he turned and laid his hand on the keeper’s shoulder.
“Thank God, Tony! Thank God!”
The keeper’s hand closed tight in Sanford’s. For a moment he did not speak.
“Almighty close shave, sir,” he said slowly in a broken whisper, looking into Sanford’s eyes.
Captain Brandt’s face was radiant. “Might ’a’ knowed he’d come up some’ers, sir. Didn’t I tell ye, ye couldn’t drown him? But where in thunder has he been under water all this time?” he asked, with a laugh that had the unshed tears of a strong man in it, and the exultation of one just recovered from a fright that had almost unnerved him. The laugh not only expressed his joy at the great relief, but carried with it a reminder that he had never seriously doubted the captain’s ability to save himself.
All eyes were now fastened on the rescuing smack. As she swept past the capsized boat, her crew leaned far over the side, reached down and caught two of the shipwrecked men, leaving one man still clinging to the keel, the sea breaking over him every moment. Sanford took the glass, and saw that this man was Lonny Bowles, and that Captain Joe, now safe aboard the smack, was waving his cap to the second smack, which hove to in answer. Presently the hailed smack rounded in, lowered her mainsail, and hauled Lonny aboard. She then took the overturned Dolly in tow, and made at once for the harbor. When this was done, the first smack, with Captain Joe and Caleb on board, shook a reef from its mainsail, turned about, and despite the storm laid a straight course back to the Ledge.