In a single hurried glance Benny saw that Sam Hardy was stripping off the greater portion of his clothing preparatory to the battle with the surf, and that the others were peering ahead in the gloom as if trying to decide at which point the lighter would take the land.
Meanwhile the life-boat had been racing toward the shore with marvellous rapidity, flung forward by both wind and wave, and those on board had no more than time in which to get a general view of the surroundings before she was being tossed to and fro in the broken water which extended a hundred yards or more from the coast-line.
“Stand ready, boys!” Tom Downey shouted, still doing his utmost to guide the light craft by means of the steering-oar. “Leap clear if she turns over! Robbins, have a care of Benny; but don’t try to do more than keep his head above water till some of us can give you a lift!”
“Take hold of the back of my coat,” the surfman said to the lad an instant after these orders had been given. “After I have jumped, do your best to keep on my shoulders, and, above all, don’t lose your courage. Surely we, whose business it is to save life in the surf, should be able to go through yonder broken water alive.”
“Don’t pay any attention to me, Mr. Robbins,” Benny replied, trying his best, and almost successfully, to speak in a firm tone. “You can save yourself, and it ain’t fair to be bothered with me.”
There was no time in which to say anything more. Already was the life-boat rising on the crest of a gigantic wave which promised to drop her on the shoal twenty yards or more to seaward of low-water mark, and all knew that the supreme moment had come.
Not until this instant did Tom Downey relinquish the steering-oar, and the others, including Benny, mentally braced themselves for the struggle which was close at hand.
Had the men been in the lighter surf-boat, the wave might have carried them beyond reach of danger; but the larger craft struck the bottom some distance from the shore, and it seemed to Benny as if the stern was flung directly over the bow.
The upheaving of the boat threw him far out over the water before he had time to leap, and ere Robbins had taken hold of him.
“Don’t lose your courage!”