"What's the matter?" asked Hiram, stirring in his turn.
The Cap'n was prompt with biting reply.
"One of your Smyrna 'cyclopedys of things that ain't so is open at the page headed 'idjit,' with a chaw of tobacker for a book-mark. If the United States Government don't scoop in the whole of us for maintainin' false beacons on a dangerous coast in a storm, then I miss my cal'lations, that's all!"
"That shows the right spirit out there," vouchsafed Hiram, his eyes kindling as another rocket slashed the sky. "Fireworks as soon as they've located us is the right spirit, I say! The least we can do is to give 'em three cheers."
But at this Cap'n Sproul staggered up, groaning as his old enemy, rheumatism, dug its claws into his flesh. He made for the shore, his disgust too deep for words.
"Me—me," he grunted, "in with a gang that can't tell the difference between a vessel goin' to pieces and a fireworks celebration! I don't wonder that the Atlantic Ocean tasted of us and spit us ashore. She couldn't stand it to drown us!"
When the others straggled down and gabbled questions at him he refused to reply, but stood peering into the lifting dawn. He got a glimpse of her rig before her masts went over. She was a hermaphrodite brig, and old-fashioned at that. She was old-fashioned enough to have a figure-head. It came ashore at Cap'n Sproul's feet as avant-coureur of the rest of the wreckage. It led the procession because it was the first to suffer when the brig butted her nose against the Blue Cow Reef. It came ashore intact, a full-sized woman carved from pine and painted white. The Cap'n recognized the fatuous smile as the figure rolled its face up at him from the brine.
"The old Polyhymnia!" he muttered.
Far out there was a flutter of sail, and under his palm he descried a big yawl making off the coast. She rode lightly, and he could see only two heads above her gunwale.
"That's Cap Hart Tate, all right," mused the Cap'n; "Cap Hart Tate gallantly engaged in winnin' a medal by savin' his own life. But knowin' Cap Hart Tate as well as I do, I don't see how he ever so far forgot himself as to take along any one else. It must be the first mate, and the first mate must have had a gun as a letter of recommendation!"