“Not ’s long ’s Cap’n Joe’s aboard, child. He ain’t a-takin’ no risks he don’t know all about. Ye needn’t worry a mite. Set down an’ finish yer breakfas’. I believe Mr. Sanford ain’t done more ’n swallow his coffee,” she added, with a pitying look, as she inspected his plate.
The fact that her husband was exposed in an open boat to the fury of a southeaster made no more impression upon her mind than if he had been reported asleep upstairs. She knew there was no storm the captain could not face.
CHAPTER XIX—FROM THE LANTERN DECK
Tony Marvin, the keeper of Keyport Light, was in his little room next the fog-horn when Sanford and the skipper, wet and glistening as two seals, knocked at the outer door of his quarters.
“Well, I want to know!” broke out Tony in his bluff, hearty way, as he opened the door. “Come in,—come in! Nice weather for ducks, ain’t it? Sunthin’ ’s up, or you fellers wouldn’t be out to-day,” leading the way to his room. “Anybody drownded?” he asked facetiously, stopping for a moment on the threshold.
“Not yet, Tony,” said Sanford in a serious tone. He had known the keeper for years,—had, in fact, helped him get his appointment at the Light. “But I’m worried about Captain Joe and Caleb.” He opened his coat, and walked across the room to a bench set against the whitewashed wall, little streams of water following him as he moved. “Did you see them go by? They’re in Captain Potts’s Dolly Varden.”
“Gosh hang, no! Ye ain’t never tellin’ me, be ye, that the cap’n ’s gone to the Ledge in all this smother? And that fool Caleb with him, too?”
“Yes, and Lonny Bowles,” interrupted the skipper. As he spoke he pulled off one of his water-logged boots and poured the contents into a fire-bucket standing against the wall.
“How long since they started?” asked the keeper anxiously, taking down his spyglass from a rack above the buckets.
“Half an hour ago.”