Once he fancied he heard men shouting during a lull in the roar of the elements; but the coming of another smothering billow shut out the friendly sounds.
Closer he was flung, until he could again hear the shouts of men, but the baffling seas kept playing with him, sending him up on the breaking wave only to once more snatch him back, until the poor boy almost despaired of living through the dreadful ordeal.
He tried his best to raise his voice, but the cry he gave utterance to was so feeble that even if heard it must have been taken for the note of some storm bird attracted by the light of the beacon fire.
Just when he was giving way to despair, he saw the figures of men running along the beach close to the edge of the waves, and new hope awoke in his breast that his predicament had been seen.
Now they were pushing into the sea, holding one another's hands, and forming a living chain, with a sturdy fellow at the end to snatch the victim of the wreck out of the jaws of death.
The precious sight was at that instant shut out, for again there came a deluge of water from behind, overwhelming the boy on the floating spar.
Darry felt something take hold upon him, which, in his excited condition, he at first believed to be a shark; but, on the contrary, it proved to be the fingers of the man at the outer end of the line.
Once they closed upon the person of the shipwrecked cabin boy they could not be easily induced to let go, and amid shouts of triumph, spar and lad were speedily dragged up on the beach beyond reach of the hungry waves.
He was dimly conscious of being released from his friendly float, and tenderly carried a short distance to the shelter of a house.
It was the life-saving station to which the boy had been taken by his rescuers.