She pushed the ginger away, and crawled back to her solitary station on the cliff. Some one said: “Let be! Let her be!”
And some one else said:—
“Whar’s the use?”
At that moment a voice arose:—
“There’s the cap’n! There’s Joe Salt, cap’n of the Clara Em! He’s acrosst the bowsprit signalin’! He’s tryin’ to communicate!”
“We haven’t seen another living figure moving across that vessel,” said Bayard, whose inexperience was as much perplexed as his humanity was distressed and thwarted by the situation. “I see one man—on the bows—yes. But where are the rest? You don’t suppose they’re washed overboard already?—Oh, this is horrible!” he cried.
He was overwhelmed at the comparative, almost indifferent calmness of his fellow-townsmen.
The light-keeper and the old captain had run out upon the reef. They held both hands to their ears. The shouts from the vessel continued. Every man held his breath. The whirling blast, like the cone of a mighty phonograph, bore a faint articulation from the wreck.
“Oh!” cried the young minister. “He says they’re all sunk!”
He was shocked to hear a laugh issue from the lips of Captain Hap, and to see, in the light of the fire, something like a smile upon the keeper’s face.