And then, even while Freddy prayed, the storm burst upon Last Island. And such a storm! It seemed as if the derelict lying there had roused wind and wave into destructive fury against the friendly outpost that sheltered him. Last Island had been abandoned on account of its perilous exposure; and its beacon light, shattered again and again by fierce ocean gales, was transferred to a safer shore.
“It’s a-washing away fast,” old Neb had informed Dan when they had drifted by the low-lying shore. “Some of these days a big storm will gulp it down for good.”
And truly the roaring sea seemed to rush upon it in hungry rage to-day. The dogs came in crouching and whining to their master; while the wind shrieked and whistled, and the foaming breakers thundered higher and higher upon the unprotected shore.
“O Dan, Dan!” thought Freddy hopelessly, as the storm beat through the broken walls and roof. “Dan will never get here now,—never!”
But, though his heart was quailing within him, Brother Bart’s laddie was no weakling: he stood bravely to his post, bathing his father’s head and hands, wetting the dry, muttering lips, soothing him with tender words and soft caresses,—“daddy, my own dear daddy, it is your little boy that is with you,—your own little Boy Blue! You will be better soon, daddy.” And then through the roar and rage of the storm would rise the boyish voice pleading to God for help and mercy.
And the innocent prayer seemed to prevail. The sick man’s labored breathing grew easier, the drawn features relaxed, the blood came into the livid lips; and, with the long-drawn sigh of one exhausted by his struggle for life, Freddy’s patient sank into a heavy sleep; while his little Boy Blue watched on, through terrors that would have tried stronger souls than Brother Bart’s laddie. For all the powers of earth and air and sea seemed loosened for battle. The winds rose into madder fury; the rain swept down in blinding floods; forked tongues of fire leaped from the black clouds that thundered back to the rolling waves.
The dogs crouched, whimpering and shivering, at Freddy’s side. Whether daddy was alive or dead he could not tell. He could only keep close to him, trembling and praying, and feeling that all this horror of darkness could not be real: that he would waken in a moment,—waken as he had sometimes wakened in St. Andrew’s, with Brother Bart’s kind voice in his ear telling him it was all a dream,—an awful dream.
And then blaze and crash and roar would send poor little Boy Blue shivering to his knees, realizing that it was all true: that he was indeed here on this far-off ocean isle, beyond all help and reach of man, with daddy dying,—dead beside him. He had closed the door as best he could with its rusted bolt; but the wind kept tearing at it madly, shaking the rotten timbers until they suddenly gave way, with rattle and crash that were too much for the brave little watcher’s nerves. He flung his arms about his father in horror he could no longer control.
“Daddy, daddy!” he cried desperately. “Wake up,—wake up! Daddy, speak to me and tell me you’re not dead!”
And daddy started into consciousness at the piteous cry, to find his little Boy Blue clinging to him in wild affright, while wind and wave burst into their wretched shelter,—wind and wave! Surging, foaming, sweeping over beach and bramble and briar growth that guarded the low shore, rising higher and higher each moment before the furious goad of the gale, came the white-capped breakers!