He dropped the heavy cup, seized the half-fainting Richard and quickly passed a lashing about him. Then he seized the cork mattress and boy and plunged to leeward.
In the dim gray of the early morning, the keeper of the Bald Head Lighthouse saw the tall form of a man staggering up the beach carrying something in his arms. He ran down the steps of the tower and met the tall stranger and relieved him of his burden of a still living but half-drowned boy.
"His mother and father are crazy with grief," said the keeper. "The woman is crying all the time that it was the will o' God, because she had a convict aboard her yacht. If you are the Captain, you had better bring the lad to her yourself. I reckon she'll be careful what kind o' passengers she takes aboard again, and take your word for things aboard her boats."
"Does she think it was because a convict was aboard, the vessel went ashore?" asked the tall man, drawing his half-naked figure up to its full height.
"Sure, she says the Captain didn't want him. A mighty fine religious woman she is, too," said the keeper.
"I reckon I won't bother her just now," said the tall man, in a voice hardly above a whisper. "You take the little fellow to her—I'll go and get some clothes on."
The light-keeper strode away with the boy in his arms. The tall man stood still for several minutes, looking after him. When the keeper reached the dwelling he turned and saw the tall man still standing there in his soaking trousers, his giant torso looking like the statue of a sea-god. "The ways o' Providence air mighty strange," muttered the sanctified man, slowly to himself——"But somehow I feel that I won."