Captain Brandt’s face was radiant. “Might ’a’ knowed he’d come up some’ers, sir. Didn’t I tell ye, ye couldn’t drown him? But where in thunder has he been under water all this time?” he asked, with a laugh that had the unshed tears of a strong man in it, and the exultation of one just recovered from a fright that had almost unnerved him. The laugh not only expressed his joy at the great relief, but carried with it a reminder that he had never seriously doubted the captain’s ability to save himself.
All eyes were now fastened on the rescuing smack. As she swept past the capsized boat, her crew leaned far over the side, reached down and caught two of the shipwrecked men, leaving one man still clinging to the keel, the sea breaking over him every moment. Sanford took the glass, and saw that this man was Lonny Bowles, and that Captain Joe, now safe aboard the smack, was waving his cap to the second smack, which hove to in answer. Presently the hailed smack rounded in, lowered her mainsail, and hauled Lonny aboard. She then took the overturned Dolly in tow, and made at once for the harbor. When this was done, the first smack, with Captain Joe and Caleb on board, shook a reef from its mainsail, turned about, and despite the storm laid a straight course back to the Ledge.
“Thank God, Tony! Thank God!”
This daring and apparently hopeless attempt of Captain Joe to carry out his plan of going to the Ledge awoke a new anxiety in Sanford. There was no longer the question of personal danger to the captain or the men; the fishing-smack was, of course, a better sea boat than the Dolly, but why make the trip at all when the pump had been lost from the overturned boat, and no one could land at the Ledge? Even from where they all stood in the lantern they could see the big rollers flash white as they broke over the enrockment blocks, the spray drenching the tops of the derricks. No small boat could live in such a sea,—not even the life-boat at the Ledge.
As the incoming smack drew near, Sanford, followed by the keeper and Captain Brandt, hurried down the spiral staircase and into the keeper’s room below, where they drew on their coats and heavy boots, and made their way to the lighthouse dock.
When she came within hailing distance, Captain Brandt mounted a spile and shouted above the roar of the gale, “Bowles, ahoy! Anybody hurt, Lonny?”
A man in a red shirt detached himself from among the group of men huddled in the smack’s bow, stepped on the rail, and, putting his hands to his mouth, trumpeted back, “No!”
“What’s the cap’n gone to the Ledge for?”
“Gone to set the pump!”