“Why—why, they are children!” cried Laura. “Oh, Billie, do you suppose they’re alive?”
“I don’t know,” said Billie, dropping to her knees beside the three pitiful little figures. Two of them were girls, twins evidently, and the third was a smaller child, a boy. Something in their baby attitudes, perhaps their very helplessness, stung Billie to sudden action.
“Help me get them loose!” she cried to the other girls, who were still staring stupidly. “I don’t know whether they’re dead or not yet. But they will be if we don’t hurry. Oh, girls, stop staring and help me!”
Then how they worked! The slippery wet rope that bound the little forms was knotted several times, and the girls thought they must scream with the nightmare of it before they got the last knot undone.
“There! At last!” cried Billie, flinging the rope aside and trying to lift one of the little girls. She found it surprisingly easy, for the child was pitifully thin. She staggered to her feet, holding the little form tight to her.
Laura and Vi each took one of the children and Connie offered to help whoever gave out first. Then they started back to the lighthouse. Luckily for them, the wind was at their backs, or they never could have made the trip back.
When they reached the Point they found that most of the crowd had dispersed. Only a few stragglers remained to talk over the tragedy in awed and quiet whispers.
These stared as the girls with their strange burdens fought their way toward the door of the lighthouse. Some even started forward as though to offer assistance, but the girls did not notice them.
Through the window Billie could see Uncle Tom standing before his mantelpiece, head dropped wearily on his arm. Then Connie opened the door and they burst in upon him.
“Oh, Uncle Tom!” she gasped. “Please come here, quick!”