All this time the man in the slouch hat was being swirled in the hell of wreckage, the captain meanwhile holding to the human chain with one hand and fighting with the other until he reached the half-drowned man whose grip had now slipped from the crate to which he clung. As the two were shot in toward the beach, Green, who had recovered his breath, dodged the recoil, sprang straight for them, threw the captain a line, which he caught, dashed back and dragged the two high up on the beach, the captain's arm still tightly locked about the rescued man.
A dozen hands were held out to relieve the captain of his burden, but he only waved them away.
"I'll take care of him!" he gasped in a voice almost gone from buffeting the waves, as the body slipped from his arms to the wet sand. "Git out of the way, all of you!"
Once on his feet, he stood for an instant to catch his breath, wrung the grime from his ears with his stiff fingers, and then shaking the water from his shoulders as a dog would after a plunge, he passed his great arms once more under the bedraggled body of the unconscious man and started up the dune toward the House of Refuge, the water dripping from both their wet bodies. Only once did he pause, and then to shout:
"Green,—Mulligan! Go back, some o' ye, and git Archie. He's hurt bad. Quick, now! And one o' ye bust in them doors. And— Polhemus, pull some coats off that crowd and a shawl or two from them women if they can spare 'em, and find Doctor John, some o' ye! D'ye hear! DOCTOR JOHN!"
A dozen coats were stripped from as many backs, a shawl of Mrs. Fogarty's handed to Polhemus, the doors burst in and Uncle Isaac lunging in tumbled the garments on the floor. On these the captain laid the body of the rescued man, the slouch hat still clinging to his head.
While this was being done another procession was approaching the house. Tod and Parks were carrying Archie's unconscious form, the water dripping from his clothing. Tod had his hands under the boy's armpits and Parks carried his feet. Behind the three walked Jane, half supported by the doctor.
"Dead!" she moaned. "Oh, no—no—no, John; it cannot be! Not my Archie! my brave Archie!"
The captain heard the tramp of the men's feet on the board floor of the runway outside and rose to his feet. He had been kneeling beside the form of the rescued man. His face was knotted with the agony he had passed through, his voice still thick and hoarse from battling with the sea.
"What's that she says?" he cried, straining his ears to catch Jane's words. "What's that! Archie dead! No! 'Tain't so, is it, doctor?"