"Mebbe they'd better have beached her down there by Lower Trillion," Tobias finally said, but shaking his head doubtfully. "Anyway, that chance is past and gone. And ye can't really blame a skipper for trying to save his ship—nossir!
"She's off the rocks now. No two ways about it. What do you say, Rafe?"
"Santa Maria!" exploded the mahogany-faced man with a final shrug. "She is loss! No help—no!"
Tobias looked quickly at Lorna. The girl could have become no whiter in any case. But her eyes flamed. The lightkeeper was not astonished to hear her say with conviction:
"I do not believe it! There must be something we can do to aid them. Think, Tobias Bassett! Think!"
"I give it as my opinion, Lorna," he drawled, "that this here so-called absent treatment ain't going to do that schooner or them that's aboard of her much good. We've got to do something more'n thinking."
CHAPTER XXVIII
DESPERATION
The trio went down from the lamp room again and joined the detective in the kitchen. That individual evidently thought much more about his own comfort than he did of the peril of the storm-racked schooner and her crew.
Lorna wept no more; but the inaction rasped her nerves. Tobias's deep reflection made him look preternaturally solemn—an owl-like gravity that at another time would have amused her.