Obliged to be content, for the moment, with the amount of relief conveyed by these words, she had Billy laid on a bed, and bustled about actively rubbing him dry, wrapping him in blankets, applying hot bottles and otherwise restoring him; for as yet the poor boy showed only slight symptoms of returning vitality.
While thus engaged the door burst open, and Maggie Davidson rushed in.
“Oh, Nell!” she exclaimed, “what has happened—is it true—Billy!—dead? No; thank God for that, but—but—the Evening Star must be wrecked! Are the rest safe? Is Joe—”
The excited young wife stopped and gasped with anxiety.
“The Lord has been merciful in sending me my Billy,” returned Mrs Bright, with forced calmness, “but I know nothing more.”
Turning at once, Maggie rushed wildly from the house intending to make straight for the shore. But she had not gone far when a crowd of men appeared coming towards her. Foremost among these was her own husband!
With a sharp cry of joy she rushed forward and threw herself into his ready arms.
“Oh! praise the Lord,” she said; but as she spoke the appearance of her husband’s face alarmed her. Glancing hastily at the crowd behind, she cast a frightened look up at Joe’s face.
“Who is it?” she asked in a whisper, as four men advanced with slow measured tread bearing between them the form of a man.
“David,” he said, while an irrepressible sob convulsed him.