“You’d better stay in the water, Bee, until I find a place to land. These rocks are terribly sharp. Pull on the line some more. That’s enough. Heave your anchor over, Hal. Does she hold? Good enough. Now, Bee, we’ll pull her in over this way so Hal can step ashore.”
Five minutes later the Corsair was anchored in the protection of the little promontory, with the line from the bow tied to a rock on shore, and Bee and Jack, dried by the breeze, were getting into their clothes again. Hal waited for them, gazing the while disconsolately across two miles of water to where Greenhaven Neck stretched itself against the coppery glow of the sunset. As he looked, the light on Popple Head began its vigil and a weak white gleam reached him as the revolving rays pointed eastward. Hal heartily wished himself on the mainland just then.
“Now,” said Jack, buttoning his jacket across his chest and shivering a little, “we’ll see if that hut is still here.”
Hog Island was only a long and narrow reef, the highest point of which lay at high tide scarcely ten or twelve feet above the water. The broadest place was at the northern end, and here, under the lee of a ledge, the boys found the stone hut. It was a rough structure at the best, the builders having possessed, it seemed, but little skill in masonry, but the walls were rain-proof and, perhaps, wind-proof, and had there been a roof overhead it would have made a very acceptable shelter. A few loose planks, heavy enough to have withstood the gales, still rested across the top of the four walls, and these the boys shifted until they were side by side at the back. Other planks, of oak and apparently at one time parts of a ship’s hull, were scattered nearby, and it took the three but a few minutes to lift them back to their places. Smaller pieces of driftwood, gathered from between the ledges, were laid over the interstices and the shipwrecked mariners viewed the result with elation.
“Now it may rain if it wants to,” said Hal.
“It won’t rain,” said Jack, “but it’s going to blow some harder before morning.” He held his hand up and wriggled his fingers, finally rubbing them together.
“Blessed if he isn’t feeling of the weather, Hal!” laughed Bee. “Can you tell what it’s going to do that way, Jack?”
Jack smiled. “I don’t suppose I can,” he replied. “Not really, that is. But sometimes I think I can. It’s a trick I caught from my father. He could tell what the weather was going to be two days ahead. Now we’d better hustle around and build a fire; two fires, in fact. We’ll build one about the middle of the island, on the highest point, as a signal, and we’ll have one here near the door of our castle to keep us warm. I hope there’s plenty of driftwood. If there isn’t we may have to burn our roof up.”
By this time it was twilight and Popple Head Light glared across at them at intervals as though trying to make out what they were up to. There was plenty of small wood above high-water line, left there by the winter gales, and soon a good-sized beacon was blazing.