"Unfasten this rope," said Carl, "and we will bring them up to the house. Perhaps they may not be drowned yet."
"One's a woman," said Lem, as he cut the lashing. "I can carry her, I reckon, while you two tote the man along."
"Go on, then," said Willard, "up to Mrs. Tom's. Be quick!"
Bearing, with the utmost difficulty, their wet and apparently lifeless burdens in their arms, they reached the cottage of the widow, and deposited the senseless forms before the fire. Then, leaving them to her charge and that of Christie, they descended once more to the beach to rescue any other unfortunate who might providentially be washed ashore.
Toward midnight the storm abated, and the king of the tempest sullenly began to call off his hosts. The dense thick clouds slowly rolled back, the lightning ceased to flash, and the thunder only growled in the distance. The wind abated, and the rain fell more slowly; but, though they waited until morning dawned, no more bodies were wafted to their feet.
The next day's light showed a scene of ruin and death. The beach was strewn in every direction with fragments of the broken ship, and some half-dozen dead bodies lay scattered on the sands. All were cold and dead; and sad and disappointed, our tired and drenched watchers turned a way.
Before going to the lodge Willard visited the cottage, and learned that the rescued ones were both alive, and might recover. And, grateful to have been the means of saving even two of the unfortunates, he sought his own couch, to dream of wrecks and drowned men till noon-day.
CHAPTER XII.
SIBYL'S RETURN TO THE ISLE
"There is a shadow in her eye,
A languor in her frame;
Yet rouse her spirit and she'll glow
With passion's fiercest flame."—T.W.H.