“You may as well know the truth at once, lad; I’m not a man who believes in keeping back bad tidings, because they must be told at some time. Even if Mrs. Clark was set adrift on a spar, she couldn’t have lived through the night. You are the only survivor of the wreck.”
“Where is the ship?”
“The waves have knocked her to pieces long before this, and our crew are out looking after the wreckage as it comes ashore.”
While one might have counted ten the lad stood looking at the keeper searchingly, and then, gathering the dog in his arms, he gave vent to the grief that had so suddenly come into his heart.
“We’ll leave him alone for a spell, Sam,” the keeper whispered. “It’ll do him good to have a good cry, and seeing’s we’ve got little chance of sending in a report till after the storm clears up, there’s no sense in bothering him with questions.”
Then the two kind-hearted men tiptoed softly out of the station, lest the sound of their footsteps might add to the grief in the boy’s heart, and the dog, pricking up his ears as if understanding every word spoken, apparently listened to the first outpouring of sorrow and utter desolation.
“It can’t be possible, Fluffy, that every one has been drowned! It couldn’t be, God would take Captain Clark and his wife, with all the crew, leaving only you an’ me here! Why, Fluff! If the man told us the truth, what’ll become of us? We’re alone in the world, do you understand that? Nobody who’ll help us anywhere! What’ll become of you, my poor little man, and she loved you so dearly!”
As if in reply the dog licked the boy’s face, and this evidence of affection appeared but to render more heavy the grief, for, throwing himself upon the floor, holding his dumb companion yet more closely, the poor lad gave way to the sorrow which had come with such cruel suddenness upon him.
He was yet in this position when the keeper and two of the crew entered the building an hour later.
In the boat-house, covered with flags, were the bodies of the captain and his wife, and near by lay three of the crew, all in the awful silence and stillness of death.