“Thought the pump was lost overboard!” cried Sanford.
“No, sir; cap’n dived under the Dolly an’ found it catched fast, an’ Caleb hauled it aboard. Cap’n tol’ me to tell ye that he’d hev it set all right to-day, blow or no”—The last words were lost in the wind.
“Ain’t that jes’ like the cap’n?” shouted the keeper, with a loud laugh, slapping his thigh with his hand. “That’s where he was when we thought he was drownded,—he was a-divin’ fer that pump. Land o’ Moses, ain’t he a good un!”
Captain Brandt said nothing, but a smile of happy pride overspread his face. Captain Joe was still his hero.
Sanford spent the afternoon between Aunty Bell’s kitchen and the paraphernalia dock, straining his eyes seaward in search of an incoming smack which would bring the captain. The wind had shifted to the northwest, sweeping out the fog and piling the low clouds in heaps. The rain had ceased, and a dash of pale lemon light shone above the blue-gray sea.
About sundown his quick eye detected a tiny sail creeping in behind Crotch Island. As it neared the harbor and he made out the lines of the fishing-smack of the morning, a warm glow tingled through him; it would not be long now before he had his hands on Captain Joe.
When the smack came bowling into the harbor under double reefs, her wind-blown jib a cup, her sail a saucer, and rounded in as graceful as a skater on the outer edge, Sanford’s hand was the first that touched the captain’s as he sprang from the smack’s deck to the dock.
“Captain Joe,” he said. His voice broke as he spoke; all his love was in his eyes. “Don’t ever do that again. I saw it all from the lighthouse lantern. You have no right to risk your life this way.”
“’T ain’t nothin’, Mr. Sanford.” His great hand closed tight over that of the young engineer. “It’s all right now, and the pump’s screwed fast. Caleb had steam up on the h’ister when I left him on the Ledge. Boom on the Dolly hadn’t ’a’ broke short off out there, we’d ’a’ been there sooner.”