He heaped up the wood on the light pile of drift, struck a match and put it to it, and in a minute the big flames flashed out all over the dark rocks, and the black, seething plane of the sea, and the wedges of ice that lay along shore. It was very cheery at first. Lloyd gave a grand hurrah! and capered about it. But one does not care to hurrah and caper alone. He thought the schooner would be in, now, in half an hour.
"They'll make straight for the fire," he said.
But half an hour, an hour passed, and, strain his eyes as he would, he could see nothing but inky darkness, and hear nothing but the dull swash, swash of the tide upon the sand. The fire was dying down. He went groping up and down the beach for wood, and built it up again.
Two hours. Three.
It was terribly cold. Overhead there was neither moon nor star, only a flat of black fog descending lower and lower. Surely the schooner had gone. Suddenly he heard a cry.
It was Jem.
"Why, Lloyd! Are you crazy? Do you know this is the coldest night this year on the island? My father says so."
"It's not so very cold," said Lloyd, beginning to hop about the fire, and sing. "That schooner's due now, I should say." It heartened him so to hear anybody's voice.
"The schooner's gone hours ago, I dare say. You'd have heard from her before now if she meant to run in."
"Did the men go out?"