“Is it you, No. 8?” a familiar voice cried, and Benny shouted in relief and pleasure, for he knew Sam Hardy was with him once more.
“Where are the others?” he panted as Sam floundered to his side.
“Still on board the lighter; but I’m not allowin’ there’s any great danger for ’em. It begins to look as if the clumsy hulk would clear the stranded steamer, in which case they have only to hold on till the surf-boat can be launched. Seein’ the life-boat, I took the chances of jumpin’ so she wouldn’t be swept out to sea, for it would be queer readin’ if the Superintendent got a letter telling that we’d lost a craft like her. How did you happen to be here alone?”
In the fewest possible words Benny explained what had happened, and asked:
“How are we goin’ to get ashore, Mr. Hardy?”
“That ain’t troublin’ me so much just now as is the question of how we’re goin’ to keep her from bein’ driven back against the cliff. So far as I could see, all hands except you, got ashore without any very great trouble, an’ they’ll soon have the surf-boat over here. What we must do is to keep off the rocks, an’ that’ll be a reasonably hard job with such a cargo of water as we’ve got aboard.”
“I can bail her.”
“As well try to dip up the ocean, for every wave is sweepin’ over us here in this broken water. We’re all right for a spell, an’ there’s nothin’ to prevent our watchin’ the others.”
Benny would have made an attempt to do whatever Sam Hardy might have suggested, however wild or impossible, and now did his best at peering through the gloom toward that dark mass which he knew was the lighter.
He could distinguish nothing on the shore; but the surfman, having had more experience, declared that he could see quite plainly the forms of their comrades.