“I was about to read you,” he said, “how a poor fellow with a wretched life behind him died a noble death. Perhaps we can do something as grand as he did. Anyhow, we’ll try. Come, boys!”
He thrust himself into his coat, and sprang down among the audience.
“Come on! You know the way better than I do! If there’s anything to do, we’ll do it. Lead on, boys! I’m with you!”
The audience poured into Angel Alley, with the minister in their midst. Confusion ran riot outside. The inmates of all the dens on the street were out. Unnoticed, they jostled decent citizens who had flocked as near as possible to the news-bearer. Panting and white, a hatless messenger from the lighthouse, who had run all the way at the keeper’s order to break the black word to the town, reiterated all he knew: “It’s the Clara Em! She weighed this afternoon under full canvas—and she’s struck with fourteen men aboard! I knew I couldn’t raise nobody at the old Life-Saving Station”—
“It’s t’other side the Point, anyhow!” cried a voice from the crowd.
“It’s four mile away!” yelled another.
“Good heavens, man!” cried Bayard. “You don’t propose to wait for them?”
“I don’t see’s there’s anything we can do,” observed the old captain deliberately. “The harbor’s chockful. If anybody could do anything for ’em, some o’ them coasters—but ye see there can’t no boat live off Ragged Rock in a breeze o’ wind like this.”
“How far off is this wreck?” demanded Bayard, inwardly cursing his own ignorance of nautical matters and of the region. “Can’t we get up some carts and boats and ropes—and ride over there?”
“It’s a matter of three mile an’ a half,” replied the mate of a collier, “and it’s comin’ on thick. But I hev known cases where a cart—Now there’s them I-talians with their barnana carts.”