DAYBREAK
Thirty-six hours previous Ralph Endicott had boarded the schooner bound
for the fishing banks and had been obliged, because of the rising sea,
to cast Gyp Pellet's catboat adrift. The _Gullwing_ was scarcely
seaworthy, anyway, and Ralph had already agreed on a price to pay the
Peehawket boatman if the old tub were lost.
Captain Bob Pritchett of the _Nelly G._ would not have had his craft so
far inshore with this rising gale, it is true, had he not received
Ralph's telegram announcing the young man's delay, and that Ralph would
be somewhere off the jaw of Cape Fisher awaiting the schooner's coming.
Nevertheless, it was not Ralph's fault that the _Nelly G._ had got into
serious trouble. He was not counted by the crew as a Jonah.
It was one of those happenings that even the best seamanship could not
have avoided. Not long after nightfall, and while the _Nelly G._ was
heading almost into the wind but making good sea-room, a big, gray wave
rose up out of the unexpected quarter of due east and smashed down upon
the stern of the schooner. Her waist was filled and everything was
washed overboard that was not lashed or that did not cling by main
force.
The blow carried away the rudder. And though there was a spare one in
the _Nelly G.'s_ hold, it could not be shipped in such a sea as this
that held. The schooner was at once, and thereafter, at the mercy of
the gale.
Captain Pritchett got over a drag, or sea-anchor, that kept the Nelly
G.'s head to the wind for that night and the day that followed. Had the
schooner run before the wind she would surely have brought up on the
heel of Cape Cod. As it was, tide and gale forced her steadily, if
slowly, inshore. All her company could hope for was a lull in the wind
and for clearing weather.
There was no fruit of this hope, as has been seen. Toward evening
another monster wave tore the drag free. The schooner's fate was then
sure. Captain Pritchett could not make the narrow entrance to Lower
Trillion Inlet. The mouth of Clinkerport Bay was too far to the north.
The schooner could not claw around the Twin Rocks under such sail as
could be spread.
The expected finally happened. It was not now far from one o'clock in
the morning when the _Nelly G._ struck broadside upon the reef that lay
just under the sea-level, and canted over to port.
The imperiled ship's company knew well enough that they could expect no
help from the Lower Trillion life saving crew, even if all the members
were on duty in this unseasonable gale. No oared boat could be pulled
up the coast to the scene of the wreck. Between the ill-fated _Nelly
G._ and the sands was a wide stretch of rock-strewn sea in which the
tide boiled like water in a cauldron. This space was too wide for a
line to be shot over it from the sands to the schooner.
Not all of the fishing craft's nests of dories had been carried away,
but a boat could not live in that turmoil of the sea. The crew climbed
the rigging and lashed each other to the stays, waiting for daylight and
hoping only for the gale to cease.
A long-enduring storm such as this in winter would have spelled death
for many of the company. But if the schooner did not break up at once
they might all cling until the sea went down and some means then be
found to rescue them.
The next full sea threatened disaster. Even now the surf broke against
the hull of the wreck with such force that it ground upon the rocks
under the strain of each recurrent blow. At any moment the framework of
the _Nelly G._ might be torn asunder.
On shore the watchers had built a huge fire of drift stuff. The wearied
fishing crew could see the men and women, who had come to watch if they
could not aid, moving about in the radiance of the leaping flames. The
sight of fellow beings cheered the wrecked men to a degree. They felt
that they were not deserted. If no succor could reach them, human
sympathy did.
It was in the false dawn--that lighting of the sky before the sun really
illumines the horizon--that a hail reached the dulled ears of the
watchers lashed to the rigging of the _Nelly G_. As she was pitched so
far to port that their bodies overhung the leaping, foam-streaked waves,
they could not see over the starboard rail of the wreck. And to their
amazement the hail came from this seaward direction.
Ralph Endicott, as agile as any of the crew and much quicker than the
skipper, who was no longer young, slipped out of his lashings and worked
his way swiftly down the stays to the rail. Within a biscuit-toss of
the wreck lay a big motor lifeboat, her belted crew with their faces
lifted to him.
"Ahoy, the schooner!" bawled again a hoarse voice. "Don't you fellers
want to be taken off, or do ye cal'late on stayin' till she breaks up
into kindling wood?"
For an instant Ralph could not speak. If he had not been
panic-stricken, he certainly was anxious. And here was unexpected rescue
at hand!
"Cap'n Pritchett! Come down! Here's visitors!" he finally bawled.
Another of the party had swarmed down to the rail. He raised a
stentorian bellow:
"Hey! Here's the Upper Trillion crew. I would know Cap'n Boggs in a
Georges's snow-squall. Come on, boys! We'd better go to breakfast with
them, hey?"
There was sudden and great hilarity. These brave fellows were used to
facing danger in many forms, and the unexpected chance for escape from
the wreck quickly assuaged their gloom.
The debarkation from the wreck was not so simple a matter. Already the
crew of the schooner had each a lifebelt strapped upon his body. Now a
sling was arranged with a whipline attached thereto, and this last flung
to willing hands in the lifeboat.
With her propeller holding her steady against the force of the inrolling
waves, the lifeboat was backed as near the wreck as was judged safe.
One after another the wrecked crew entered the sling and the life savers
drew them over to the motor craft while their mates aboard the wreck
payed out the line.
More than one of the passengers in this rude contrivance was submerged
in the leaping, hungry waves; but there were no serious casualties until
the end. Ralph Endicott was one of the last to go, and Captain
Pritchett himself aided the young man. The captain insisted upon
remaining till the last. There was nobody to aid him in leaving the
wreck. With a line about his waist Captain Pritchett leaped into a
receding wave and was hauled into the lifeboat unconscious and with a
broken arm.
Fourteen men, including the skipper and the cook, were thus rescued. It
was an event of greater peril than can easily be imagined. Nor was all
danger over when the full tally of the schooner's company was in the
motor-boat.
It was still so dark that the crowd ashore could not see that the crew
of the wrecked vessel had taken their departure. It was lighter out
here at sea than it was inshore. The lifeboat was speeded for the mouth
of Clinkerport Bay.
Chilled and almost water-logged, Ralph Endicott crouched with the other
members of the rescued fishing boat's crew in the surf boat. The dash
through the breakers at the entrance to the bay did not excite the
party, for they were merely wretched and exhausted. It was one of the
crew from the life saving station that hailed another motor-boat
sputtering toward the cove between Clay Head and the Twin Rocks Light.
"Cap, there's that plucky girl and Tobe Bassett, I do believe. They are
just getting back from across the bay."
"Who is she?" asked one of his mates. "One of the summer visitors, did
you say? Bassett was plum' winded, and she ran all the way to the
station and told us that the schooner was on the rocks. Some girl,
that!"
"She's Mr. John Nicholet's daughter," shouted the captain of the life
saving station. "Lives in that big house up yonder on the Clay Head."
On hearing this Ralph roused himself. These men spoke of Lorna
Nicholet. In the increasing dawn he saw and recognized his own
_Fenique_.
The lifeboat swept on past the smaller craft. Tobias, at the helm of the
latter, shouted a cheery word. Both boats were beached about the same
time on the sands below the light.
Rafe Silver led the crowd of neighbors and members of the Lower Trillion
crew to meet the disembarking fishing schooner's company. The moment
Ralph got out of the lifeboat he hurried to where the _Fenique_ had
bored her nose into the sandy beach.
"I give it as my opinion, Lorny," Tobias Bassett was saying loudly and
cheerfully, "that we mebbe ain't doing Ralph's boat any good, beachin'
her this way. But I cal'late 'tis more important---- Hi! Gimme your
hand, gal. D'ye feel all in? Sho! I guess----Why! here's Ralph now."
He had his arm about the swaying figure of the young woman. Lorna
started forward, uttering a little cry:
"Ralph! Oh, Ralph Endicott! Are you safe?"
"Tobias Bassett!" ejaculated the young man, angrily, "do you mean to say
you let her go out with you in such a sea as this? Man, you're crazy!"
"Now, now, Ralphie! don't let go all holts. There warn't no holding of
her back when she knowed you was out there in that haddocker. And I
didn't know how to run this dratted engine."
Lorna had shrunk back against the sturdy figure of the lightkeeper. She
suddenly remembered that Ralph Endicott had played no lover's part
toward her, at least during these past months.
"You're--you're all right, Lorna?" he asked with hesitation.
"Why, yes, Ralph. Only wet. I----"
Her speech was terminated abruptly by the appearance of the detective.
He put a tentative hand on Ralph's shoulder.
"So this is the chap I'm looking for, is it?" he said. "Do I understand
this is Ralph Endicott?"
"Oh, sugar!" muttered Tobias, with disgust. "I'd forgot all about that
feller."