"Have you sent to the lifeboat chaps?" shouted Bertie.
"Young gentleman went an hour ago," came the answer. "But they are off on another job to Mulworth, t'other side of the station. He wanted us to go out in a fishing-boat. But no one 'ud go. He be gone for a bit o' rope now. You see, sir, them rocks 'ud dash a boat to pieces like a bit o' eggshell. There's only three chaps aboard as far as we could see awhile ago. And not a hundred yards off us. But it's a hundred yards of death, as you might say. No boat could live through it. It ain't worth the trying."
A hundred yards of death and only three little human lives to be gained by the awful risk of braving that hundred yards!
Bertie turned away, feeling sick, yet silently agreeing. Who could hope to pass unharmed through that raging darkness, that tossing nightmare of great waters? Yet the thought of those three lives beating outward in agony and terror while he and his friends stood helplessly by took him by the throat.
Suddenly through a lull of the tempest there came a great shout.
The clouds had drifted asunder and a few stars shone vaguely down on the wild scene. The dim light showed the doomed vessel wedged among the rocks that stuck up, black and threatening, through the racing foam.
Nearer at hand, huddled on the stout sea-wall, stood the little group of watchers, their faces all turned outwards towards the two masts of the little schooner, which remained faintly discernible through the shifting gloom.
It was not more than a hundred yards away, Bertie realised. Yet the impossibility of rescue was as apparent as if it had been a hundred miles from land. He fancied he could see a couple of figures half-way up one of the masts, but the light was elusive. He could not be certain of this.
Suddenly a hand gripped his elbow, and he found Archie Croft beside him, yelling excitedly.
"Don't let him go!" he bawled. "It's madness—sheer madness!"