Meantime Dan had set his dingy sail to what he felt was a changing wind,
and started Neb's fishing boat on the straightest line he could make for
Killykinick. But it had taken a great deal of tacking and beating to keep
to his course. He was not yet sailor enough to know that the bank of
clouds lying low in the far horizon meant a storm; but the breeze that now
filled and now flapped his sail was as full of pranks as a naughty boy. In
all his experience as second mate, Dan had never before met so trying a
breeze; and it was growing fresher and stronger and more trying every
minute. To beat back to Beach Cliff against its vagaries, our young
navigator felt would be beyond his skill. The only thing he could do was
to take the shorter course of about three miles to Killykinick, and send
off Jim and Dud in their rented boat (which had a motor) for a doctor.
Then he could explain Freddy's absence to Brother Bart, and hurry back to
his little chum.
Wind and tide, however, were both against these well-laid plans to-day.
The wind was bad enough, but now even the waves seemed to have a strange
swell, different from the measured rise and fall he knew. It was as if
their far-off depths were rising, stirring out of their usual calm. They
no longer tossed their snowy crests in the summer sunlight, but surged and
swayed in low, broken lines, white-capped with fitful foam. And the
voice--the song of the sea--that had been a very lullaby to Dan as he
swung every night in his hammock beneath the stars, had a hoarse, fierce
tone, like a sob of passion or pain. Altogether, Dan and his boat had a
very hard pull over the three miles to Killykinick.
"Thar they come!" said Captain Jeb, who, with Brother Bart, was watching
from the beach. "I told you you could count on Mate Dan, Padre. Thar the
lads come, safe and sound; though they hed a pull against the wind, I bet.
But here they come all right."
"God be thanked for that same!" said Brother Bart, reverently. "My heart
has been nearly leaping out of my breast this last half hour. And you
weren't over-easy about them yourself, as I could see, Jeroboam."
"Wall, I'm glad to see the younkers safe back, I must say," agreed Captain
Jeb, in frank relief. "Thar was nothing to skeer about when they started
this morning, but that bank of cloud wasn't in sight then. My but it come
up sudden! It fairly took my breath when Neb pointed it out to me. That ar
marline spike didn't hurt his weather eye. 'Hurricane,' he says to me;
'straight up from the West Indies, and them boys is out!' I tell you it
did give me a turn--aye, aye matey!" as Dan came hurrying up the beach.
"Ye made it all right again wind an' tide--but where's the other?"
"Laddie,--my laddie!" cried Brother Bart, his ruddy face paling. "Speak
up, Dan Dolan! Has harm come to him?"
"No, no, no!" answered Dan eagerly, "no harm at all, Brother Bart. He is
safe and sound. Don't scare, Brother Bart." And then as briefly as he
could Dan told the adventure of the morning.
"And you left laddie, that lone innocent, with a dying man?" said Brother
Bart. "Sure it will frighten the life out of him!"
"No, it won't," replied Dan. "Freddy isn't the baby you think, Brother
Bart. He's got lots of sand. He was ready and willing to stay. We couldn't
leave the poor man there alone with the dogs."
"Sure you couldn't,--you couldn't," said the good Brother, his tone
softening. "But laddie--little laddie,--that never saw sickness or death!
Send off the other boys for the doctor, Jeroboam, and the priest as well,
while Dan and I go back for laddie."
But Captain Jeroboam, who was watching the horizon with a wide-awake
weather eye, shook his head.
"You can't, Padre,--you can't. Not even the 'Lady Jane' could make it agin
what's coming on now. If the boy is on dry land, you'll have to trust him
to the Lord."
"Oh, no, no!" answered the good Brother, forgetting what he said, in his
solicitude. "I'll go for him myself. Give us your boat, man, and Dan and I
will go for laddie."
"Ye can't, I tell ye!" and the old sailor's voice took a sudden tone of
command. "I'm captain of this here Killykinick, Padre; and no boat leaves
this shore in the face of such a storm, for it would mean death to every
man aboard her,--sure and certain death."
"The Lord have mercy,--the Lord have mercy!" cried Brother Bart. "My
laddie,--my poor little laddie! The fright of this will kill him entirely.
Oh, but you're the hard man, Jeroboam! You have no heart!"
"Back!" shouted Captain Jeb, heedless of the good old man's reproaches, as
a whistling sound came over the white-capped waves. "Back, under cover,
all of ye. The storm is on us now!"
And, fairly dragging Brother Bart, while Neb and Dan hurried behind them,
the Captain made for shelter in the old ship under the cliffs, where Dud
and Jim had already found refuge.
"Down with the hatches! Brace everything!" came the trumpet tones of
command of the old sailor over the roar of the wind. And doors and
portholes shut, the heavy bolts of iron and timber fell into place, and
everything was made tight and fast against the storm that now burst in all
its fury on Killykinick,--a storm that sent Brother Bart down on his knees
in prayer, and held the boys speechless and almost breathless with terror.
In the awful blackness that fell upon them they could scarcely see one
another. The "Lady Jane" shook from stem to stern as if she were being
torn from her fifty years' mooring. The stout awnings were ripped from the
upper deck; their posts snapped like reeds in the gale; the great hollows
of the Devil's Jaw thundered back the roar of the breakers that filled
their cavernous depths with mad turmoil. On land, on sea, in sky, all was
battle,--such battle as even Captain Jeb agreed he had never seen on
Killykinick before.
"I've faced many a hurricane, but never nothing as bad as this. If it
wasn't for them cliffs behind us and the stretch of reef before, durned if
we wouldn't be washed clean off the face of the earth!"
"Laddie, laddie!" was the cry that blended with Brother Bart's prayers for
mercy. "God in heaven, take care of my poor laddie through this! I ought
not to have let him out of my sight."
"But he's safe, Brother Bart," said Dan, striving to comfort himself with
the thought. "He is on land, you know, just as we are; and the old
lighthouse is as strong as the 'Lady Jane'; and God can take care of him
anywhere."
"Sure He can, lad,--He can. I'm the weak old sinner to doubt and fear,"
was the broken answer. "But he's only a bit of a boy, my own little
laddie,--only a wee bit of a boy, that never saw trouble or danger in his
life. To be facing this beside a dying man,--ah, God have mercy on him,
poor laddie!"
So, amid fears and doubts and prayers, the wild hours of the storm and
darkness passed; the fierce hurricane, somewhat shorn of its first tropic
strength, swept on its northward way; the shriek of the wind sank into
moan and murmur; the sea fell back, like a passion-weary giant; the clouds
broke and scattered, and a glorious rainbow arched the clearing sky.
The bolts and bars that had done such good duty were lifted, and the crew
of the "Lady Jane" went out to reconnoitre a very damaged domain.
Cow-house and chicken-house were roofless. Brown Betty lay crouching
fearful in the ruins while her feathered neighbors fluttered homeless in
the hollows of the rocks. The beans and peas and corn,--all things that
had lifted their green growth too proudly, were crushed to the earth. But
far worse than this was the havoc wrought on the beach. One half of the
wharf was down. The small boats, torn from their moorings, had disappeared
entirely. The motor boat Jim and Dud had hired for the season was stove in
upon the rocks. The "Sary Ann," stranded upon the shoals of Numskull Nob,
to which she had been swept by the gale, lay without mast or rudder,
leaking at every joint.
The two old salts surveyed the scene for a moment in stoic silence,
realizing all it meant to them. But Brother Bart, with the sunlight
dancing on the waves, the rainbow arching the sky, broke into eager,
hopeful speech.
"God be thanked it's over and we're all alive to tell it; for Noah's
deluge itself couldn't have been worse. And now, Jeroboam, we'll be going
over after laddie; and the Lord grant that we may find him safe as the
rest!"
"We'll be going after him!" repeated Captain Jeb, grimly. "How and whar!"
"Sure--can't we right one of the boats?" asked the old man, anxiously.
"Which boat," was the gruff question. "That thar play toy" (surveying the
motor boat) "is smashed in like an eggshell. Whar the other has been swept
to nobody knows. And the 'Sary Ann' has done her best, as we all can see;
but no boat could hold her own agin that storm. Do you think she will
stand till morning, Neb?"
Neb rolled his dull eyes over reef and shoal.
"She moight," he replied briefly. "Struck pretty bad thar in the bow; but
the wind is down now and the tide is low."
"And she is oak-keeled and copper-braced from stem to stern," continued
Captain Jeb. "She may stick it out until we can get thar and tow her in.
As for the boy, Padre, we can't reach him no more'n we can reach the 'Sary
Ann' without a boat; and thar's nothing left that will float around this
Killykinick."
"Ah, the Lord have mercy! And are we to leave laddie in that wild place
beyond all night?" cried Brother Bart. "Scatter, boys,--scatter all over
the place, and maybe you can find a boat caught in the rocks and sands;
for we must get to the laddie afore the night comes on, cost what it may.
Scatter and strive to find a boat!"
While the boys scattered eagerly enough Captain Jeb, making a spyglass of
his hands, was scanning the horizon with a sailor's practised eye.
"What is it you see?" asked Brother Bart, anxiously. "Don't tell me it's
another storm!"
"No," answered Captain Jeb, slowly, "it ain't another storm. Neb" (his
tone grew suddenly sharper and quicker), "step up to the ship and get the
old man's glass,--the glass we keep shut up in the case."
Neb, who never shirked an order, obeyed. In a moment he returned with one
of the greatest treasures of the "Lady Jane"--Great-uncle Joe's ship-glass
that was always kept safe from profaning touch; its clear lenses, that had
looked out on sea and sky through many a long voyage, polished to a shine.
Captain Jeb adjusted them to his own failing eyes, and gazed seaward for a
few moments in silence. Then he said:
"'Pears as if I couldn't see clarly after that tarnation blow. You look
out, Neb. And, Padre, you'd better step back thar and keep a weather eye
on them younkers. It doesn't do to turn them out too free, with things all
broke up."
"You're right, man,--you're right, Jeroboam," said the good Brother
tremulously. "I'll keep an eye on them, as you say."
"Thar,--I've got him out of the way!" said Captain Neb, as Brother Bart
hurried back to watch over his scattered flock. "Now look, Neb,--look
steady and straight! Three points to the south of Numskull Nob,--what d'ye
see?"
"Nothing at all," answered Neb.
"Look again!" His brother adjusted the old shipmaster's glass with a hand
that trembled strangely. "Another point to the south. Look steady as ye
can, Neb. Yer weather eye was always clarer than mine. What d'ye see
now?"
"Nothing," came the answer again; and then the dull tone quickened: "Aye I
do,--I do! Thar's suthing sticking out of the waves like a broken mast."
"The Old Light," said Captain Jeb, hoarsely,--"all that's left of it. Last
Island has gone under, as you said it would, Neb,--clean swallowed up. And
the boy--" (the speaker gulped down something like a sob). "Looks as if
the Padre will never see his little lad agin."