“She’s smashed to kindlin’ wood!”
“Here they be! Here they come! Haul ’em in!”
The others ran out into the surf and helped the brave fellows, soaked and discomfited, up the beach. They were badly bruised, and one of them was bleeding.
The pedestrians from the town had now come up; groups of men, and the few women; and a useless crowd stood staring at the vessel. A big third wave rolled over and smashed the port light.
“It’s been going on all these ages,” thought Bayard,—“the helpless shore against the almighty sea.”
“Only two hundred feet away!” he cried; “I can’t see why something can’t be done! I say, something shall!—Where are your ropes? Where are your wits? Where is all your education to this kind of thing? Are you going to let them drown before your eyes?”
“There ain’t no need of goin’ so far’s that,” said the old captain with the aggravating serenity of his class. “If she holds till it ebbs they can clomber ashore, every man-jack of ’em. Ragged Rock ain’t an island except at flood. It’s a long, pinted tongue o’rock runnin’ along,—so. You don’t onderstand it, Parson. Why, they could eeny most walk ashore, come mornin’, if she holds.”
“It’s a good pull from now till sun-up,” objected a fisherman. “And it’s the question if she don’t break up.”
“Anyhow, I’m going to try,” insisted Bayard. A rope ran out through his hands,—shot high into the air,—fell into the wind, and dropped into the breakers. It had carried about ten feet. For the gale had taken the stout cable between its teeth, and tossed it, as a dog does a skein of silk, played with it, shook it to and fro, and hurled it away. The black lips of the clouds closing over the moon, seemed to open and grin as the old captain said:—
“You ken keep on tryin’ long’s you hev the inclination. Mebbe the women-folks will feel better for’t; but you cay—n’t do it.”